have rolled all the waters of Lethe through the brain of the present premier. Sonnino will come into power, no doubt; to what other end has he abjured all his early Liberal doctrines and written that article in the Nuova Antologia which is at once an act of such sycophancy to the reigning house and of such "lèse majesté" to the greater claims of the nation? But he will not need to come in behind Rudini, and it is scarcely probable that he will consent to do so.

Sonnino, it is true, declares that he is a Crispino no longer; but he should not be allowed to change his coat so advantageously; he was a "Crispino à outrance" throughout the whole Crispi administration; he was even a violent Crispino and a ruthless drainer of the country's blood and treasure. Rudini should surely leave him to do his own (and his second) abjuration; he is quite certain to receive full reward for it at the Quirinal, and Rudini need not hasten that happy hour.

Meanwhile, the onlooker can but say, "A plague on both your houses." All the real wants, all the infinite needs, all the great suffering of the people, are stifled under the feather-bed of fine phrases and the accursed rain of stamped paper. Nothing is done, or under the present régime ever will be done, to lift off the military tyranny, the police tyranny, the fiscal tyranny-the grinding increasing daily and hourly persecution, irritation, and impoverishment, “in the king's name," of the people. "La politique n'a pas des entrailles," we know. But sometimes "les entrailles vides" of neglected victims may upset all the finest combinations of "haute politique." Rudini's chief fault, and it is a great one, is that he continually places the dynasty before the country, dynastic interests before national interests. The concluding lines of his electoral address enjoined the nation to show itself in the elections worthy of the king. This is putting the cart before the horse. He should have bidden the nation be true to itself.

Dynasties have their day and pass; the seas and the sands cover the sites

of their palaces and the places of their graves; the wild ass and the hungry goat browse where their pomp was enthroned; but the Italian soil remains; the Latin people live.

Rudini has more than once in the past year failed to see the current of popular feeling and gone counter to it, or perhaps has seen but has been indifferent to it. In allowing the nuptials of the Prince of Naples to take place at a period of national distress and mourning, he rudely and sharply offended national feeling. In his Cretan policy he offends not only the sentiment but the conscience of the best portions of the nation. In various minor internal matters it is the same. Raids of the police made on certain classes in theatres and cafés have irritated beyond measure many who were not individually concerned by such invasions. It is not necessary to be Boule de Suif to resent the ill treatment of her. In a word, the public has not had from him that sympathetic interpretation of its moods to which it naturally looked forward, when a year ago it brought him back to power, in the hope that he would heal its wounds and meet its necessities.

The country respects him, but it was at one time ready to do more than this; if it do not do more now, the fault is his. He has lost the love of a nation for the sake of a smile at the Quirinal.

Last spring one of the finest opportunities which ever occurred for great action was offered by the course of events and by the disposition of the people; there was no one capable of taking advantage of either of these. The time for such action has now passed; the anvil is now cold-when it was hot no one was strong enough to lift the hammer and strike.

The first necessity of Italy is not any such pernicious addition to the faults of the existing statute as Sidney Sonnino desires, but the substitution for the present one of an entirely different statute, which would cut down the royal prerogative to the limits of an English sovereign's prerogative, and would render it impossible for any sovereign

either to combine with his ministers against the nation or with ex-ministers against the existing Cabinet. With the present statute any monarch can now do this whenever he chooses. The constitution should likewise render it necessary for the royal household to go out and come in with the ministry as in England, so that a household of the Opposition could not remain in waiting to influence the palace against the Cabinet as it does now, and to introduce exministers of the Opposition into the private apartments of the palace as has in the present month taken place in the Quirinal. Such alteration of the statute would, of course, be in actual fact a revision of the constitution, and it is this revision which must be the preliminary measure to any genuine reform. It is passing strange that such men as the first makers of "United Italy" tolerated such a statute as the existing one for a single year of national life; it embodies none of the first principles for which they fought. The court of the Quirinal is based on the lines of German and Spanish courts, and many subservient and obsequious forms of etiquette which are current there touch and injure the dignity of the Cabinet-such, for instance, as the habit of exacting the attendance of the ministry at the arrival and departure of royal persons to and from the railway station; a waste of time and a valet-like duty which must gall any high-spirited gentleman, who might justly urge that his services to crown and country are of a different kind from those of mere equerries. The position of Rudini and of Sermoneta would have justified them in such a refusal, and would have been at first a much-needed step to the reform of the Quirinal in greater matters.

But Rudini unhappily cares to be a persona grata at court, and the head of the House of Caitresni has left the Cabinet, a fact much to be regretted, for the Duke of Sermoneta, though no orator and not a trained diplomatist, was an ally of value from his high character and fine breeding; and it is not probable that he would have sent ironclads to Crete, he would also certainly have re

fused consent to the dubious compromise by which the colony of Erythrea is to be kept open like an unclosed wound in the side of Italy. Nothing will be easier whilst an Italian remains on the edge of the Red Sea than to raise a cry of "Honor!" and send conscripts again to the slaughter. Sermoneta recognized the necessity of entire withdrawal from Africa, and it is, I believe, no secret that it was this opinion which caused his cession from the present ministry. Such a withdrawal weakened the ministry and led to its further belittling by appointments which brought to it no access of dignity, of intellectual power, or of any of the attributes to be desired in the introduction of new ministers. In name opposed to Crispinism, the newcomers reproduce Crispinism in its worst forms. I cannot believe that the qualities mental and moral which go to change a petty tradesman into a rich one are the kind of qualities which ennoble political life or adorn a Cabinet; nor can I believe that the talents and resources of a voluble and ingenious lawyer are the attributes which become a statesman. While Rudini remains in power no doubt the purely peaceful character of the African possessions will be retained, that is, if there be no attack on them from without, a thing which it is absolutely impossible to guarantee. But if a Sonnino ministry come in, or any other ministry of "adventure" bent on the heinous search for prestige, it would almost certainly revive the African folly; indeed we have Sonnino's own word for it that he will do this whenever he can. Early in the current month he has declared to Macala, “Non posso vedere sopra uno rimpicciolimento dei Confini della Colonia Africana perchè sarebbe menomare troppo il prestigio delle arme e della monarchia.”

This is the language with which we shall be treated when Sonnino comes to the front in Italian politics, whether in company with Rudini or in place of Rudini-the "Lingua Crispiana" which has mocked the misery of so many thousands of dying men and starving women. The prestige of the army and

of the monarchy! Prestige!-the empty gilded gaudy juggernaut under which the nation will again be crushed to a pulp of blood and dust!

Many persons look forward hopefully to the return of Giolitti to power. Giolitti has certain fine qualities; he is cool, courageous, and inspires strong personal attachments, especially in his own province; he is, moreover, the terror of the Crispini. But from his administration there would be nothing new or very liberal to be looked for; it would be built on the old lines. Cavalotti has attained a high position in the last year, and for courage and tenacity of purpose has no equal; but I should regret to see him take office-that extinguisher of patriotism-and though a superb frondeur, it is doubtful if he would be a good minister, unless in a republic. On the whole the prospect is melancholy, and the future dark. The whole spectacle from the result at the opening day at Montecitorio, must leave the most profound sense of discouragement on any one who loves the country. Is she to be asked to live forever on empty words, the electric light, and the joys of the Questura? Little else is offered her, except the privilege of sending some of her sons in the national uniform to cut down others of her sons in volunteer's rags who have gone to fight for Crete and Greece.

OUIDA.

From Macmillan's Magazine. NELL: A BIOGRAPHICAL FRAGMENT.

She was a mongrel, an unmitigated mongrel, I was about to write, but am restrained by the recollection that she was one quarter good fox-terrier. You would not have thought it to look at her. Except for her tail (which her owner had considerately docked in infancy, to impart as much as he could of a false air of breeding), she might have been the veriest garu, or native cur, who sneaked hungrily about the empty porridge-pots in a Mang'anja village.

technicalities of canine phraseology to describe Nell's appearance correctly. All I know is, that she was white, with two liver-colored patches on her head and face, and that she had enormous flapping ears which generally stood erect. I have known her scared almost into fits (and well she might be) by the shadow of these same ears projected on the wall by my bedroom candle. As for her moral character, it may be summed up in a sentence; she had a warm heart, no conscience, not a particle of courage, and not the remotest vestige of manners.

Her first owner was an English coffeeplanter, developing the resources of the Dark Continent in a retired spot, where, except for the Angoni, he might almost as well have been Robinson Crusoe. Fortunately for himself, he had a taste for reading, a great love of animals, and the knack of making friends with the natives. When he moved about out of doors, he usually appeared encompassed with a cloud of dogs; and when he visited his cattle kraal, his two grey monkeys would swing themselves down from the great wild fig-tree in whose branches they had fixed their abode, and swarm up him to take sweet potatoes out of his pockets.

Jones and I were trying British Central Africa together. I will not enter into details (this being not our biography, but Nell's), further than to say that our place was a few miles away from that of the aforesaid planter, whom I will call, as did his Angoni neighbors, Chimfuti, or the Big Gun. Jones had a black-and-white fox-terrier called Nix, a most jolly dog. Except for the ticks taking their share of him, the climate agreed with him wonderfully well, and he never lost the keen edge of his sporting instincts. But then Jones used to talk to him, and make a companion of him; and there were always plenty of rats, so that he did not get bored, and Jones slept of nights without finding the brutes rioting over him as he lay in bed.

I had no dog, and Chimfuti offered me Nell. She was, I suppose, seven or

foolish as only a half-grown puppy can be. I received her with effusive gratitude, because, just then, I was in a mood to welcome any sort of a dog; and, besides, I was full of grand theories about the influence of kindness and judicious training on the lowest mongrel in creation. If the average garu was a sorry spectacle, it was only because he was starved and bullied. Treat him kindly, feed him decently, let him see that you cared for him personally, and valued his friendship, and you would in time have a faithful dependant, who, given the opportunity, would be quite ready to emulate the classic example of Gelert or the hound Argus. I used to say all this to Jones sometimes, as we sat on the verandah smoking after dinner, and watched the sun setting behind the three peaks of Mvai; but he would only give a little laugh and make no further comment.

The subject is a painful one. Suffice it to say that I was compelled to modify my opinions before I had done. Not that she was anything but affectionate, in a way; she would have been warmly attached, I think, to any one who fed her regularly, and I always did this myself. But it is not pleasant to have your dog flinging its whole bulk upon you, and copiously licking your face every time you take your ease in a basketchair. And she was not one who took hints readily. The only way to smoke or read in peace was either to shut her out or tie her up. If the former, she invariably bounced back through a window, for it was impossible to keep the house hermetically sealed in that climate; if the latter, she wailed dismally, till Jones said he could not and would not bear it, and asked me why I did not bring her up better.

Then she took to sleeping on my bed, by day or night and totally regardless of previous occupancy. It was a narrow folding stretcher, with scarcely room for more than one; consequently, it often happened that I awoke in the night, and found myself balanced on the outer verge, with Nell curled up in the middle of the mattress against the small of my back. Or I would find her lying

on my feet, and she was no light weight; and, as for kicking her off, it was next door to an impossibility. She would lie perfectly still, an inert but elastic mass, so that your feet, when you assayed to kick, just slid under her and left her where she was. There was nothing for it but to get up and haul her down, and tie her up, and go to sleep as best one could, in spite of her yelping and yowling, only too thankful if she did not awaken Nix, and cause Jones to shout from his chamber: "Why can't you keep that brute-beast of yours quiet?"

But Nell,-Jones thought I was not strict enough with her (Nix, of course, being a model of correct nurture), so I took to thrashing her whenever I caught her on my bed in the daytime. I kept a bango cane handy in the corner of the room; she made a great noise when it was applied, but I don't know that it hurt her much. For a bango, let me tell you, is by no means the same thing as a bamboo, and, if not carefully selected, is apt to fly to pieces in the hand when vigorously used. However, between that and the tying-up at night, she began to realize that the bed was a forbidden place; and this is where her abominable lack of conscience comes in. She learned to retire of her own accord to the basket appointed for her, and to stay there without compulsion till I was asleep, when she would quietly get up, and edge me out of bed as before described. Also she would sleep on that bed in the day-time, whenever she got the chance. If I came in, and said, sharply, "Nell!" she would jump down in a tremendous hurry, only to slip back the moment I was out of sight. I should have respected her more if there had been more method and capability in her transgressions; but she was so inanely short-sighted. She would barely give me time to get out of the room before repeating the offence.

We had been warned always to keep our dogs indoors at night, in view of the risks so graphically indicated by that worthy Scot who, being one of a cheerful party in a lamp-lit and curtained room at the Mission, heard a scuffle and

howl on the verandah, followed by an ominous stillness, and solemnly remarked: "Man, the dowg's awa' wi' a leopard!" Is it not recorded in the traditions of British Central Africa? But I am bound to say that no special precautions were needed in Nell's case. Nothing would induce her to put her nose outside the door after dark, if she knew it.

Perhaps it was another evidence of a nervous temperament that she had a cat-like horror of water, which, indeed, suggested a more efficacious chastisement than the cane. Before long she would fly in terror at the mere sight of a jug. She used to wash her face with her fore paws, too, which I never saw any other dog doing. It may be the case that native dogs are partly descended from cats; the ancients told us we were always to expect something new from Africa.

But, alas, there were yet other sins which called aloud for the intervention of the cane and the water-jug. There would be a sound of tumult outside, causing us to issue forth and confront the spectacle of half-a-dozen small boys in shirts and calico kilts, the foremost whereof, with the air of an Accusing Angel, was dragging the offending Nell along by the collar. "Garu wako a na ba!" said he. "Thy dog has been stealing" The grammar tells us that it is more respectful to say, "garu wanu (your dog);" whence I conclude that either the little wretches did not know their own language so well as the missionary who wrote the said grammar, or they thought no respect could be due to the owner of a dog like that. Of course I had to thrash her, and compensate the boy whose fowl or porridge she had stolen, and who commonly held out a rescued leg of the corpus delicti, or the plate which had contained it, in front of her nose while she was undergoing punishment. She made noise enough for half-a-dozen dogs when this sort of thing happened; and thus, possibly, escaped a good deal.

Sometimes, too, our capitao, an educated boy from the Mission, came up to report that he had suffered loss, of his VOL. XIV. 740

LIVING AGE.

dinner, or of eggs from under a sitting hen in his private apartment, or what not. There was a sternness in Zedekiah's eye on these occasions, and a lofty disapproval in his manner, which were not easy to face; and Jones, who could pulverize Zedekiah with a look when he liked, never would help me out, but sat by, smoking with stony impassiveness. It always made me sensible that the contempt Jones habitually felt for Nell, which he never took any pains to disguise, was now being extended to me. And you have no idea to what an abject being that consciousness reduced

me.

One comfort was that Nyell, as the boys usually called her, was not sporting enough to worry live fowls, or Jones would certainly have insisted on a halter for her straightway. Nix did, occasionally,-but we are not treating of Nix just now. Once, when I was at Pembereka's kraal, negotiating for supplies of maize flour and beans, Nell made my heart leap into my mouth by slaying a diminutive and very skinny chicken. But, old Pembereka was not Zedekiah, and he accepted my apologies most good-naturedly. And I really think that was Nell's solitary exploit in the way of slaughter.

While on the subject of sport, I must not omit to mention the sole occasion on which Nell earned for herself unalloyed praise. It was rather a mysterious occurrence, and I don't quite know, even yet, how to explain it. I used to collect beetles, in a helpless, amateur sort of way, to the derision of Jones and the contemptuous wonder of the various small boys who served us. These last, however, speedily learned that something might be gained by bringing me specimens; consequently every creeping thing they set eyes on was pounced upon with triumphant shouts of balasuko!-which, I believe, means a bottle, and referred, of course, not to the captive, but to the lethal receptacle awaiting him. Well, one day, being busy in the garden, I was startled by a shout from Jones: "I say, Duffield, Nell's brought you a balasuko!" I hastened indoors, and found Jones nearly