AFFIRMATIVE.

KAGOSIMA contained the palace of Prince Satzuma in its very centre. The prince was the representative offender, and was justly amenable for a national crime, for which reparation has been denied. It was impossible to bring Satzuma to his senses without forcible arguments, and these were employed. That in the execution of this muchrequired instruction, the village in which the prince had chosen to fix his abode was exposed to peril and injury, was one of the accidents, or rather, necessities of war, which, in the attainment of its ends, regards the inconveniencies of those open to misfortune as matters of regretful need-be, but does not desist from the infliction of punishment because the innocent must suffer with, and sometimes for, the guilty. So long as the dread arbitrement of cations is carried on by arguments from cannon mouths, bombardment will be required, and will be justifiable. It is involved in the law of nations, and in the instincts of humanity. We presume it is only in the sense of legally and martially justifiable the question is put. It cannot be seriously debated, Was this bombardment accordant with the positive laws of Christian morality? -MORES NON MORS.

International law is essentially retributive. In all wars the innocent suffer for the transgressors. Think ye that the inhabitants of the neighbourhood of Waterloo were guilty above all others in resisting Napoleon Bonaparte, or in withholding aid to Wellington, that these generals pitched on it the scene of their terrible conflict? Or are the reprisals, made by opposing

countries when their ships meet on the high seas, confined only to those vessels whose owners, commanders, crew, &c., are the active agents in prosecuting the war? To speak of Kagosima as an inoffensive and wrong-suffering town is therefore clearly beside the question. As much so was Sebastopol, or Delhi, or Lucknow, as far as the mass of the mere inhabitants were concerned. When nations, through their officials, commit injuries, and refuse reparation, international law permits the bringing of the governors to their senses by the evils to which the subjects they are bound to govern well are put, that they may see cause for speedy change of manners, and remember thereafter the duties they owe to other nations. Hence the bombardment of Kagosima was justifiable by appeal to the outgrowth of the common conscience of nations-international law. -GEODESY.

The origin of our dispute with Japan was the barbarous murder of Mr. Richardson. It was necessary that our Government should take speedy and decisive measures to avenge his death. It was necessary for the safety of every English resident in Japan, not one of whose lives would have been safe had one been taken with impunity. It was also necessary for the honour of our flag, which should always be maintained inviolate; for the prestige of our name, and the safety of our countrymen exposed to violence in all parts of the world.-QUOR.

The measures taken by our admiral were justified by the character of the persons with whom he had to deal. The Eastern character needing firm, decisive, and severe treatment, and

being only reached and influenced by physical force, our traders would be subjected to constant danger, and our trade soon be entirely destroyed, if semibarbarous nations were not made to feel that our Government was prepared to protect both, at any expense, against any and all enemies.-A. X.

NEGATIVE.

This

The bombardment was unjustifiable in its origin, barbarous in its execution, and will prove most disastrous in its results. The murder of Mr. Richardson, which formed the pretext for the bombardment, appears to have been caused by his own indiscretion, or something more. The Englishman is generally very successful in raising the ire and disgust of any foreigners he comes in contact with. He treads every shore with the air of a conqueror. "He is monarch of all he surveys," and at liberty to disregard and violate usages esteemed sacred by the strangers he is trading with. Mr. Richardson was deliberately disregarding an immemorial custom of the Japanese when his offence was visited with the punishment custom had long decreed for it. being the case, the demands of the British Government were, to say the least, excessive. An apology and £100,000 were demanded from the Tycoon, and £25,000 and the execution of the murderers from the prince in whose territory the murder took place. The former were complied with, and compliance with the latter only postponed, not neglected. An immediate bombardment was ordered, and the destruction of an immense town and thousands of innocent persons was the consequence, no opportunity for the latter to escape being given-a custom always observed among civilized nations, and which should have been followed in this instance. Anything more barbarous in the dealings even of Russia it would be wellnigh impossible to find. The result of this barbarity will be to excite the greatest enmity towards us on the part of the Japanese, and

possibly lead to our entire exclusion from the trade of the country.-X.W. E.

The unjustifiability of the bombardment is evidently felt by the members of the Government. Lord Clarence Paget has said it was an 66 accident," yet we

find nothing to bear out his excuse in the despatches of Colonel Neale or Admiral Kuper. They represent the bombardment as beginning on one day, when a high wind was blowing, which spread the conflagration, so increasing the flames from the burning city as to "illumine the entire bay." On the second day, when the wind had fallen and the smoke cleared away, it was observed that only half of the city was destroyed, and orders were given for the bombardment to recommence, and to continue till the other half was reduced to ashes. Yet it was an แ accident"! Mr. Layard endeavours to charge our traders with the responsibility of all our Eastern troubles, and perhaps with some truth. Yet if our Government and admirals allow themselves to be made the instruments of petty and quarrelsome merchants, we cannot allow them to escape from responsibility. The excuses of both ministers are valueless, except as showing that the transactions they try to excuse cannot be justified.-X. Y. Z.

No, the bombardment was not justifiable on the grounds of justice, and it was a treacherous abandonment of all the laws of humanity. The miserable object of the war, Mr. Richardson, who had, despite warning and entreaty, violated the law and custom of the country in which he was then sojourning-not in any official position, but as a mere curious visitor interested in the country and customs of the Japanese,— lost his life, foolishly and wretchedly. To demand reparation for his foolhardiness, then, was almost as stupid as his own conduct. Suppose a Japanese in the streets of London insisting in standing in the way of the Queen's carriage, during the progress of a state procession, would he not be beat and thrust aside by the bâtons of

the police and the sabres of the guards? In Japan the law is, under such circumstances, not to beat, but to slay, the intruder. The man who, coming from a distant country, is on sufferance as a visitor, and who does not respect the laws, is a fool, and pays the forfeit of his foolery by his death. It is a blunder, then, under those circumstances, to ask the nation to make reparation in so much money," and to execute the officers who executed the law. But if that was a blunder, to bombard Kagosima was a crime. We are told of the gallant exploit of the admiral engaged in the deed, as if there was anything gallant in firing shot upon an offenceless and harmless town! The excuse set up being that, owing to the high sea running, it was impossible to fire without some of the shot reaching the town. And in the name of humanity, then, why should the shot have been fired at all? The fact that now the admiral is endeavouring, through his friends and the Government, to palliate and excuse the act, is proof, without further words, that the bombardment of Kagosima is not justifiable, but quite the contrary.-J. J.

Few can approve the conduct of her Majesty's Government towards the people of Japan. Indeed, whatever be urged against the exclusiveness of the Japanese character and polity, it may be said that the behaviour of Englishmen generally is not at all calculated to command the respect and good-will of this singular people. Great and powerful at home, the Britisher is apt to be rude and arbitrary abroad. The indigenous urbanity of "the lord of the isles" is not easily acclimatized. Hence the semi-barbarous Orientalists are not slow to resent what they consider to be

obvious wrong, and accordingly hatred and outrage mark the intercourse into which they are coerced. But we doubt whether such retaliation as the recent bombardment of Kagosima be necessary, either to vindicate the honour of the British or to exact the subordination of the Japanese. We opine that the atrocious exploit of Admiral Kuper will serve to widen the breach between the two communities; that the last lesson in European civilization will tend to brutalize its recipients, if it do not lead to consequences more disastrous. Henceforth we may expect to see commercial treaties openly violated, and to hear the English name publicly execrated; for all must admit that humanity, honour, and justice, condemn this wanton destruction of life and property.-F. C. C.

It is undoubtedly the duty of the British Government to protect the meanest of its subjects in all parts of the world; but it is also the duty of the Government to see that in so doing it does not encourage its own subjects to treat those of another nation haughtily and contemptuously, or permit them to violate the existing laws and customs of the land in which they reside. Those who do so should certainly do it at their own peril, and receive reprimand rather than encouragement for their acts. This principle has generally been acted upon; but in the present case it has very unwisely been departed from. The bombardment of Kagosima arose in consequence of one of our countrymen being killed by the retinue of the Prince of Satzuma. It was not murder, and was brought on by the unwarrantable conduct of the gentleman himself.-R. J.

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QUESTIONS REQUIRING ANSWERS.

419. Can any of your readers give me a little information respecting the personal history and literary labours of the American writers, N. P. Willis and Fanny Fern," and oblige-J. M.?

420. Please inform me what was the origin of the words "book" and "Bible," and also the date of the earliest known printed book.-S. A. S.

421. I see a name often quoted of late as that of a poetess, Dora Greenwell. Is it real or fictitious?-T. L. D.

422. Could you oblige me with any information about the Professor Huxley, whose work on "Our Knowledge of the Causes of Organic Nature" was so reviewed in April, 1863, as to excite me to know something more of him?-COUN

TRYMAN.

423. Do you think the interleaving of books which are intended to be carefully studied is advisable? A friend of mine holds it to be indispensable to accuracy.-G. TUDOR.

424. Has any book been written such as might be termed, "A History of the Development of Conscience in the Human Race"?-G. W. C.

425. Who is the author of the saying, "As a people behaves, so it thrives; as it believes, so it behaves"? -C. H. E.

426. Thomson's "Winter" has been selected for the Oxford Local Examination for 1864: perhaps some of your contributors might supply hints on how to study that poem, and obligeAN INTENDING CANDIDATE.

REPLIES.

407. In answer to W. L. W., I beg to state that Messrs. Farrah and Dunbar issue the Poetic Magazine, which is edited by J. B. Leno. Among the contributors are Mr. Thornton Hunt, the Bideford postman, Chevalier de Chatelain, and others. I believe that

there is another poetical magazinet entitled "Modern Metre,' one shilling, monthly; but I am inclined to think that the Poetic Magazine is greatly superior to it.-H. EVANS (Hirwain).

419. N. P. Willis and" Fanny Fern." -The following information may be of service to your correspondent B. S., and may be interesting to some of your other readers:-Mr. Nathaniel Parker Willis was born in Portland, in the United States, Jan. 20, 1817. While a child he was removed to Boston, and received his first education at that city and at Andover. He entered Yale College in the seventeeth year of his age, and about the same time produced a series of poems on sacred subjects. Immediately after he had graduated, in 1827, he was engaged by Mr. Goodrich ("Peter Parley") to edit the Legendary and the Token. In 1828 he established the American Monthly Magazine, which he conducted for two years and a half, when it was merged in the New York Mirror, and Willis came to Europe. On his arrival in France he was attached to the American Legation by Mr. Rives, the minister at the French Court, travelled in that country, Italy, Greece, Asia Minor, Turkey, and last of all, in England, where he married. The letters he wrote while abroad, under the title of "Pencillings by the Way," first appeared in the New York Mirror. In 1835 he published "Inklings of Adventure," a series of tales, which appeared originally in a London magazine under the signature of Peter Slingsby. In 1837 he returned to the United States, and early in 1839 he became one of the editors of the Corsair, a literary gazette in New York; and in the autumn of the same year he came

*The publication of "Modern Metre" has been discontinued.-ED.

again to London, where he published "Loiterings of Travel," in two volumes, and "Two Ways of Dying for a Husband." In 1840 appeared his " Poems and "Letters from under a Hedge." About the same time he wrote the descriptive portions of some pictorial works on American scenery and Ireland. In 1843 he, with Mr. G. P. Morrish, revived the New York Mirror, which had been discontinued for several years, first as a weekly, then as a daily paper; but withdrew from it upon the death of his wife in 1844, and made another visit to England, where he published "Dashes of Life with a Free Pencil," consisting of stories and sketches of European and American society. On his return to New York, he issued his works, collected in a closely printed imperial octavo volume. In October, 1846, he married a daughter of the Hon. Mr. Gunnel, and is now settled in New York, where be is associated with Mr. Norris, as editor of the Home Journal, a weekly literary gazette. Mr. Willis belongs to what has been styled the Venetian school in letters, there being less of accurate drawing than of colouring in his pictures; but the glitter of his style, and the abundance of ornamental details scattered over his writings, have gained for him considerable popularity in America, and some admirers in this country.

A sister of Mr. Willis-Mrs. Parton, better known by her nom de plume of Fanny Fern"-has gained a considerable literary reputation. She has been for many years a contributor of light articles to American periodical literature; most of these she reprinted under the collective title of "Fern Leaves," which had a very extensive sale. She has also written much for children, and is understood to be a constant contributor to one of the most popular daily journals at New York.-R. A. 420. Origin of the words Book and Bible. - Instead of the beautiful cream laid or "blue wove paper that we use, our Teutonic forefathers

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The first book printed with a date was the Latin Psalter of 1457. There is a copy in the Royal Library at Windsor.-X.

421. Dora Greenwell is the real name of a real poetess. She is a daughter of the late William Thomas Greenwell, of Greenwell Ford, in the county of Durham, and sister of the Rev. Wm. Greenwell, A.M., Minor Canon and Librarian of the Cathedral of Durham. She is the author of "The Patience of Hope," "Christina, and other Poems," "A Present Heaven," and "The Two Friends." She has contributed to many of the religions periodicals of the day. There is in her writings a good deal of genuine poetic merit.-R. M. A.

In

422. Professor Thomas Henry Huxley, F.R.S, fc., fc., is one of the most earnest cultivators, and one of the most uncompromising expounders of the sciences of life, organization, and matter, of the present day. He is, we understand, the son of the late George Huxley. He was born in 1825, at Ealing, at the school of which Middlesex parish he was educated. He studied medicine in the school of the Charing Cross Hospital, West Strand, London. 1846 he was appointed assistantsurgeon to her Majesty's ship Rattlesnake. This vessel was sent out on a cruise for the surveying of the Southern Pacific Ocean and Torres Strait, which separates Papua from the most northerly point in Australia. On this cruise it was out for some years, and Huxley did not return to England till 1850. After this he contributed papers to the scientific societies-Linnæan, Geological, and Zoological. He was also engaged in the geological survey of Great Britain, carried on in connection with the Museum of Practical Geology,