PERRY & CO.'S MONTHLY AMONG the events of the past month may be reckoned Mr. -The Great City Libel Case, Rubery versus Grant and the_Times-Dr. Newman's and Archbishop Manning's Reply to Mr. Gladstone's Expostulation. The deposition of the Gaikwar of Baroda.- -A new process for rendering ordinary photography serviceable in lithography has, it is said, been invented by Messrs. Aubel and Kaiser, of Köln. It has been named Aubeltype. The Foreign Office has requested the Danish Government to allow its agents at Disco Proven and Uponivik to collect hunters, dogs, and dog drivers for service with the Arctic Expedi- tion.The Germans are preparing an expedition to explore the shores of East Greenland. It will start in the summer, about the same time as our Polar expedition. The Morning Post says that according to official statements, Germany will, in 1876, be able to bring into the field at any point of her frontier, on twelve days' notice, no fewer than 16 complete corps d'arme of 40,000 men each, armed with the latest perfected weapons.- Last year seventeen hundred of the Roman Catholic clergy were imprisoned or otherwise punished within the limits of the German Empire. The Calcutta correspondent of the Times telegraphs:-The Duffle proposed indemnity as too severe. -Good progress has been made of late years in iron shipbuilding in Italy; a fine iron steam-vessel, the Etna, of 3,000 tons, has been recently completed by Messrs. Orlando of Leghorn, for the Simaria Steam Navigation Company, and is the largest iron vessel that has yet been built in Italy.. -Some of the French papers state that M. Francis Guérin, a Frenchman, who has returned to Paris from the Cape, is in possession of a white diamond, found in a deserted pit near the "Devil's Table," said to be worth £280,000.- By a defect in Sir John Lubbock's Act there will be no Bank Holiday at Christmas this year, the law making no provision for the Feast of the Nativity falling on a Sunday. Happily, there is time to provide a remedy.— It is stated that the Tartar inhabitants of the Crimea are emigrating en masse, the chief cause of the exodus being their objection to the new Russian law of military service. According to a Parliamentary return there were 138,729 males, and 50,054 females, total, 188,783, convicted of drunkenness and NEWS OF THE DAY. A SUBSTITUTE FOR STIMULANTS. "I never was the worse for liquor in my life," is the frequent and honestly-meant declaration with which the physician is often met in the frequent cases in which it is clear to him that polite tippling is the source of fatal disease. At the Medical Society of London, lately, in the course of an interesting discussion on a frequent form of dyspepsia and brain disease, Dr. Theodore Williams observed that most of these cases occurred among people with tippling habits, whose practice it was to take stimulants between meals, whenever they felt what they call "low." The result was bad in two ways. Firstly, the alcohol introduced into the stomach caused a large secretion of gastric juice, which, having no food to act on, irritated the mucous membrane, and gave rise to flatulence, distending the stomach, and thereby disordering the heart's movements; hence, palpitation and irregular supply of blood to the brain, with its accompanying symptoms. Secondly, the waste of gastric juice prevented a proper amount from being forthcoming at meals; the food was only partially digested, and escaped assimilation; hence, starvation of the blood and consequent anemic symptons. The treatment most successful, therefore, in these cases was a careful combination of food with stimulants, and a reduction of the latter as much as possible. Dr. Routh agreed with the author (Dr Throwgood) as to the common occurrences of these cases among women. Chronic alcoholism he noticed chiefly among matrons, and he treated it by two methods. The hankering after stimulants he satisfied by a harmless one in the form of assafoetida or valerian; or he gave raw beef-juice prepared by rubbing the beef through a sieve, and flavouring it with a little celery. Three claretglasses a day of this juice were given, and it allayed the desire for spirit. M. MICHEL CHEVALIER ON FREE TRADE. One of the speakers at the breakfast given in Paris to the Lord Mayor of London was M. Michel-Chevalier, who said it had become impossible for France and England, whose interests were now so interwoven, to go to war. The extension of Free Trade was the annihilation of the causes which led to war. He hoped that in three or four years the two countries would be bound by an unbreakable bond, the Channel tunnel. Friends might then breakfast in Paris and dine in London the same day. M. Léon Say said it was a rare pleasure to find himself in so large an assembly of Freetraders. He and his friends were preparing for the Free Trade campaign of 1877, when, in spite of strong opposition, he hoped they would obtain, if not Free Trade, reduced tariffs. M. Wolowski said he agreed with what his friend Léon Say had just said. It was in developing the industries of a country that one developed its riches. He would join his efforts with his friends Léon Say and MichelChevalier to prepare for 1877. MERCANTILE MARINE. A deputation from the Liverpool Committee on the condi tion of our merchant seamen waited on Mr. Ward Hunt, which was accompanied by Sir Charles Adderley, to urge the estab lishment of training-ships for the Mercantile Marine. After various explanations, the First Lord said the subject had been for many months under consideration, and he hoped that at no distant date the Government would be able to mature a complete scheme. He could not say, however, what proportion of the expense the Government would be willing to bear, though they would be able to bear some share, either in money or kind. THE CHEGUE BANK. A correspondent adopting the signature "Jones," writes to the Pall Mall Gazette-"I am a shareholder in the Cheque Bank, and I owe Smith a grudge, which I have long declared I would give a sovereign to gratify. Smith has just been fool enough to pay me £1 that he owed me by a Cheque Bank draft covering 10. I have put the said draft into the fire, thereby enriching the Bank to full amount of £10, which Smith can't touch while the draft is outstanding, and leaving my friend Smith and his heirs £9 out of pocket for ever." THE GREAT LIBEL CASE. In the Court of Exchequer the Lord Chief Baron summed up the case in which Mr. Rubery brought an action for libel against Baron Grant and Mr. Sampson, late City editor of the Times, on account of articles which had appeared in that paper imputing to the plaintiff complicity in the Californian diamond frauds, and which were said to have been instigated by the first-named defendant and uttered by the second. His lordship examined the evidence at great length, and pointed out to the jury that it would be for them to consider whether the articles were libellous; and whether the charges made against Mr. Rubery were proved; what, if unjustified libels had been uttered, should be the amount of damages to be awarded; and whether Baron Grant was a party to the publication of all or any of the articles complained of. The jury, after having deliberated for nearly two hours, found that the articles were libellous, and that the charges against Mr. Rubery were not proved, awarded £500, damages against Mr. Sampson, and expressed their opinion that Baron Grant was not a party to the publication. In reference to the case the Times expresses its satisfaction that by the articles which the jury have condemned it has rendered an important service to its readers. As between the Times and Mr. Rubery, it says, the recent trial gives us no uneasiness. But there was another question raised in it-a question between the conductors of this paper and the late writer of its City Article, which we cannot approach without a feeling of profound and unalloyed mortification. The evidence extracted from Baron Grant revealed relations between him and our late employé which we have received with mingled astonishment and indignation. Whether Baron Grant hoped for anything, and whether he got anything, we do not inquire. But this much we do feel at liberty, and indeed under the necessity, to say, that, in allowing himself to enter into such relations of obligation to a financial agent, Mr. Sampson betrayed the unbounded trust that had been reposed in him, and that had any knowledge of these transactions reached us, there would have been long since a change in the authorship of the money articles of the Times. The honour and independence of this paper must ever be above suspicion, and the humiliation we have suffered is hard to bear -a hardship compared with which the damages that have been awarded to Mr. Rubery are as a feather in the air. GRATES AND STOVES. A large number of people who go abroad think it their duty to come back with deep contempt for the customs of the old country. The open fireplace is a favourite subject of abuse for these stern critics. Did ever any one hear, they ask of all who are patient enough to listen to them, of any plan for diffusing heat more absurd? More than half the heat, they assert, goes up the chimney; bitter draughts are created; and while some parts of a room are made oppressively warm, others are left in a state of icy coldness. Of course, there is but one remedy. We must do as they do in France, Germany, in America-abandon open fireplaces and introduce A correspondent of the Times makes himself the spokesman of this class, and asks indignantly how it is that people suffer more from cold in England than in Russia. "With a closed thick porcelain stove," he exclaims triumphantly, "a regulator and a thermometer, you can do anything, getting your heat at about half the cost of that engendered in an open grate." As to our fireplaces, they are dismissed as relics of the olden times when we had chimney corners and burnt wood upon the hearths before coal was known." It cannot be denied that there is good deal of truth in such complaints. In a drawing-room with a fire crackling stoves. and shining brightly, it is possible at this time of the year to sit shivering for hours. In spite of the advantages of an equable temperature, however, the Continental method is not likely to be generally adopted. In the first place, the open fireplace is an English institution; and Englishmen think twice before abolishing anything they have been accustomed to for generations. Besides, it is not quite true that "with a closed thick porcelain stove, a regulator and a thermometer, you can do anything." With such appliances you may heat a room, but you cannot make it look cheerful. A bright, blazing fire seems to welcome every one as a friend; it is to a room, as has often been remarked, what eyes are to a human being. A blank, dismal effect is produced by even artistically constructed stoves. No pleasant associations can gather around them; and they seem always more or less in the way. In these circumstances the battle between Stove and Grate will ¦ probably not, at least in our day, end in a victory for the stove. STRIKES. The Morning Post notes that "there may be occasions on which a strike is as necessary on the one side as a lock-out is on the other, but eitner step is hazardous. The immediate loss is certain, the ultimate gain extremely doubtful. It is, of course, the last weapon of combination, but it should be taken up only on a great emergency. Its employment on the present occasion cannot but have weakened the influence and power of the union. The leaders have seen themselves thwarted in their attempt to keep up wages to whatever height they liked. The men have found themselves compelled to give way, after enduring self-enforced distress from which their non-union colleagues have been exempt. The advantages of unionism are open to much question, and would be so were there no such thing as tyranny of the majority. But now that union is met by union, and that the employers are seen in combination as well as the employed, there is little chance of either party dictating overweeningly to the other. If it should clear misconceptions of many upon this point, and make it apparent , that a strike is a foolish and a dangerous course, the present crisis will not have been without its advantage." up the PERSIAN ACQUISITIONS AT KENSINGTON. The Oriental department of the museum has just received a valuable consignment from Persia of metal work, fayence, and armour, collected by Major Murdoch Smith, chief superintendent of the telegraphic establishment. The specimens in metal are marvellous. Two tall incense burners, perforated and minutely engraved with hunting subjects in medallions, trays with engraved scenes representing nimbed figures and groups, water bottles, hookah bases, and a variety of other metal objects, all pierced and engraved with scrolls, foliage, fabulous monsters, geometric designs, and every variety of ornament that Oriental imagination could devise. Two bowls and dishes are of a kind of gun metal, highly sonorous and inlaid with gold. The specimens of marqueterie, of wood, bone, and metal, are of the most minute workmanship. A wooden box, sent over in detached pieces, is most delicately carved, and most elaborate are the wooden sherbet spoons, which are the prototypes of metal in the loan collection. Book covers, writing and mirror cases of papier maché are painted in brilliant colours with flowers or legendary subjects. The glass glazed wares of Persia, ancient and modern, are among the most interesting specimens in the collection, so much has yet to be learned concerning this fayence. Major Smith sends a bowl of rather large size of the creamy vitreous ware, whose characteristic decoration is the border of holes pierced in the paste and filled in with transparent glaze-the supposed gombroon ware of Horace Walpole. This bowl is painted with black and blue flowers, and has a pattern of "grains of rice" perforated round the rim, with the addition of longitudinal stripes of the same pierced work. A smaller bowl, café au lait colour, has a white painted ornament in stripes alternate with the same pattern perforated. A blue and white bowl has an inscription in Persian characters round a raised boss or centre. Another bowl, brown outside, is curiously splashed or mottled with blue within. Bulb-shaped water bottles, decorated with brown metallic lustre, have, with the rose water sprinklers, most elaborate metal mountings. A kaliam, or hookah base, is of blue glaze with flowers of a strange greenish brown. Scallops for pillau and rasps for the bath, in the forms of ducks and shoes, are among the minor objects of curiosity. Kashan would appear to be the present seat of the manufacture of the Persian wares, and there are numerous large rice dishes the produce of this locality. A fine piece of circular form is covered with a floral pattern of entwining scrolls, outlined in dark indigo blue. Another, white, has a central ornament of the most brilliant cobalt blue; others closely copy the Chinese in the style of decoration; some are of green grounds, with gaudy flowers of red, blue, and yellow. The suits of armour are most interesting, but the case is, at present, in so dark a corner as almost to elude observation. There are parts of three suits, helmets, shields, axes, and guards for the arms, breast, and back, all of steel. The helmet of one represents some horned monster, another has a Persian inscription perforated in open work round the rim. In a third, the characters are inlaid. All are furnished with nose-guards, a neck-guard of mail, and steel spikes on the top, like the helmet of the Prussian soldiers. The shields have four bosses and an ornament, with Persian inscriptions in the centre and round the rim; the gauntlets, like the neck-guards, are of chain mail. One suit is furnished with an extraordinary pair of loose leathern trousers, covered with chain mail sewn on to them, and having also steel plates attached. Circular steel guards with spikes like the helmets protect the knees. The finest suit of armour is of steel, elaborately engraved and Damascened in gold, and has each piece embossed with representations of the Persian emblem of the sun. It is to be hoped that Major Smith may continue his zealous researches. This first consignment already adds considerably to our imperfect knowledge of Persian art. THE CHINESE EMPIRE. There can be no doubt that the reign of the Emperor of China just deceased has seen recent events" affect the whole tenour of the national life." Year by year the authority of the European nations increases, and the old exclusiveness melts away, as far as the people themselves are concerned, under the influence of interest. The Chinese Government has acknowledged the superiority of European civilisation in many ways, and not least by placing its forces under an Englishman in the war of life and death which it raged against the rebels. A more complete recognition of the rank and authority of foreign nations is to be found in the personal reception of the Ambassadors by the Emperor which was conceded some time since. We are on the verge of still greater changes, all in the direc tion of increased intercourse and the breaking down of the barriers which prevent free travelling and free settlement in the Chinese Empire. It would be wrong, however, to represent China as a mere inert body which only receives the impressions which the European races make upon it. On the contrary, there is reason to think that very remarkable events may possibly be in store in Asia through the vigour of which the Chinese race is capable. The humiliations of the Government seem to have been the cause, or the opportunity, of new and unexpected movements. Chinese energy has taken the forms of rebellion and emigration; if the Government recovers its authority, the same energy may carry the Imperial power into regions of Asia where it has hitherto been only nominal. The impulse, indeed, is said to have already commenced. When the time comes that Europeans can freely travel where they please, they may be able to contemplate a power far more extensive and complete than that which their fathers reverenced forty years ago. POLITICAL SUMMARY. FRENCH VIEW OF MR. GLADSTONE'S RETIREMENT. Mr. John Lemoinne, in the Debats, says :-"An event which is almost a revolution has just taken place in the home politics of England. The greatest contemporaneous orator in Parliament, and one of the greatest of all times, gives up the This resolution was not direction of the Liberal party. unexpected. Already during the last Session Mr. Gladstone has taken but a very irregular share in debate, and his party, disorganised by the general elections, complained of having neither direction nor discipline. On the one hand, Mr. Gladstone would neither resume nor abandon what is called the leadership, and, on the other, the memory of his great services, the ascendancy of his imperious character, and the influence of his incomparable eloquence did not permit of imposing on him a successor. But parties in England cannot live long without rules and discipline; the Liberal party needed to reform and reconstitute itself since its defeat, and Mr. Gladstone understood that it was his duty to render his friends their liberty. Mr. Gladstone may well say that he returns to his favourite studies, of which the dearest is theology, and which he has already lately resumed with a passion which may be thought exaggerated. It may be said, however, that he had never abandoned it entirely, and had pursued it simultaneously with his arduous financial and political labours as with his vast and profound study of the classics. He translated Homer at the same time as he drew up his admirable Budgets, and it was this philosophical knowledge of financial matters, joined to his consummate classical wisdom, that made him superior to Peel, Derby, and Bright, who did not possess the double gift. It is a strange sign of the times that this man who finishes his political career as chief of the Liberal and sometimes Radical party, should have begun it as the preferred champion, the greatest hope of the ultra-conservative party. Thirty-five years ago Gladstone was the pet child, the Benjamin of the alma mater -that is to say, of the Oxford University, the citadel of religious intolerance. His retirement from the Liberal leadership, which is an important event in the domestic policy of England, is not likely to have any influence on her foreign policy. Mr. Gladstone never meddled with foreign policy, and, in fact, did not like it. He belonged to the economical school, which All his immense activity and preferred non-intervention. energy were spent on home reforms, and what he accomplished both in financial and commercial as well as ecclesiastical matters, would have formerly been the work of several reigns and generations. Religious controversy has again become the subject of his predilection. Like all serious minds of the day, Mr. Gladstone contemplates with anxiety the struggle throughout the world between Church and State, and it is henceforth on this ground that we shall find him. TURKEY AND THE EAST. The Times, discussing the Montenegrin difficulty says:— "Even those who have the most solid of all reasons, for desiring the maintainance of Turkey rejoice in their hearts, for it is taken for granted that the 're-opening of the Eastern Question' means the downfall of the present system, and people have become so nervous that they see this re-opening in every disWhen we are pute, great or small which affects the East. conscious that opinions so humiliating to the Turkish State are current, we cannot but ask to what purpose have millions after millions been squandered during the last twenty years on armaments by land and sea? At the present time the Turkish army is formidable in numbers, and armed with the most admirable weapons that modern science can produce. How much the Sultan has spent on his Sniders and his rifled artillery we cannot compute, but it is far less than has been devoted to the gigantic ironclads whose huge hulks remain month after month and year after year motionless in the Golden Horn. Ever and anon another is added to the number from some English dockyard, and there they lie waiting for an imaginary enemy. Have these armaments any reality? Do they mean power, independence, courage, national security, freedom from foreign domination, or are they as unsubstantial as a dream? The strange thing is that European opinion seems to take no account of them. They might as well have never come into existence for any effect they have on the popular view of the Montenegrin or any other difficulty." manner. WHAT HAS BECOME OF THE MONEY? M. Wolowski, Paris, under the title of "The Economical Results of the War Contribution," has just published a work. It is based on German as well as on French official documents, and especially on a pamphlet, dealing with the finances of the German Empire, written by Herr Wagner, Professor of The eminent Political Economy in the Berlin University. French publicist begins by proving that Germany has not done so much harm to France as she desired, or reaped so much from the war indemnity as she expected. The sudden flow of gold on the German market, owing to the rapid payment of the five milliards, which Prince Bismarck had not calculated on, was bound to produce its natural consequence; the value of precious metals went down, while the value of everything else went up. It is true, as M. Wolowski admits, that Germany has been able to accomplish her military organisation without resorting to fresh taxes, but this is rather a political fact, and contributes nothing to the productive power of the country. From a purely economical point of view, he cannot see that Germany has gained any other advantages than the reform of her monetary system and the acquisition of the Alsace-Lorraine railways. On the other hand, has the general welfare of the country been improved in a durable Has its productive power been stimulated, or has the population attained the prosperity it dreamt of on the faith of the war indemnity? After a season of abundance everybody appears to be in straightened circumstances, as is shown by M. Wolowski in the following expressive extract from a recent Berlin letter:-"It may seem strange, but nevertheless a fact, we are exposed to veritable distress, and one would imagine that we had just paid five milliards instead of receiving them." No doubt, continues the French economist, foreign products have flowed on to the German market, that the consumption has momentarily increased in all ranks, and that salaries have risen; but it must not be forgotten that at the same time the price of everything has gone up, and that, consequently, the people feel the same pressure as if they had to support fresh taxes. The wages of the working-classes have undergone a nominal, rather than an effectual, rise, but that rise is nothing compared with the increase in rent and the price of articles of consumption. Herr Wagner, in his pamphlet, dwells at great length on the advantages of a fresh distribution of riches, among the various classes of the population, and especially among the working-classes. To this M. Wolowski replies, "It is not sufficient to say that the people have bought more or lived better. What is essential is, whether there has been an increase in the national production or the national saving." But those are not the only misfortunes attendant on the too sudden acquisition of wealth. Other economical interests have been seriously damaged. Led away by the magic of the words "five milliards," the people rushed into expenses and exagger. ated speculation, which have rather compromised than favoured the public weal. They became insatiable; they imagined they could succeed everywhere, and the capital acquired with a stroke of the pen was squandered in dangerous undertakings, the liquidation of which caused a violent crisis on the Berlin market. However, M. Wolowski does not pretend to say that the payment of the five milliards has not decreased the riches of France or increased those of Germany. But what he contends is that the hopes on the other side of the Rhine have been deceived. It was thought that France would be ruined, and that Germany would henceforth be master of the European market, but neither of these speculations has been realised. |