BOOKS RECEIVED.

Primer of English Literature. By Rev. Stopford A. Brooke, M. A. Edited by John R. Green, M. A. New York: D. Appleton & Co. 1876. Centennary Memorial of the Planting and Growth of Presbyterianism in Pennsylvania, and parts adjacent. With appendices and illustrations. burg: Benj. Singerly. 1876. [Presbyterian Book Store.]

Pitts

Gentlefolks and Others. By Julia Duhring. J. B. Lippincott & Co., Philadelphia.

By Mrs. H. M. Cadell.

Leisure Hour Series. 16mo. cloth.

Ida Craven. $1.25. New York: Henry Holt & Co. [Porter & Coates.]

Practical Botany: Structural and Systematic. By August Koehler, M. D. Copiously illustrated. New York: Henry Holt & Co. 1876. [Porter & Coates.]

Half-Hour Recreations in Natural History. Division First.

Half-Hours

with Insects. Part 10. Insects as Architects. By A. S. Packard, Jr. Boston: Estes & Lauriat.

Price 50 cents.

A Family Tree. By Albany de Fonblanque. Price 75 cents. Woven of Many Threads. By Mrs. C. V. Hamilton. Boston: Estes & Lauriat. [Claxton, Remsen & Haffelfinger.] Lectures on the Gospels. By Joseph A. Seiss, D. D. Two vols. in one. 8vo., pp. 1160. Cloth. Philadelphia: Lutheran Bookstore.

The Pilot and His Wife. By Jonas Lie, translated by Mrs. Ole Bull. Illustration. 12mo., pp. 336. Cloth, $1.50. Chicago: S. C. Griggs & Co. [Claxton, Remsen & Haffelfinger.]

The Chinese Problem. By L. T. Townsend, D. D. 16mo., pp. 86. Paper. Boston: Lee & Shepard. [J. B. Lippincott & Co.]

Gianetto. By Lady Margaret Majendie. Leisure Hour Series. 16mo., pp. 180. Cloth, $1.25. New York: Henry Holt & Co. [Porter & Coates.] Illustrated Lessons in our Language: or How to Speak and Write Correctly. By G. P. Quackenbos, LL. D. 16m0., pp. 180. Cloth. New York: D. Appleton & Co. [Porter & Coates.]

Old Greek Life. By J. P. Mehaffy. History Primers (Edited by J. R. Green), No. 1. Illustrations. 18mo, pp. 101. Cloth. New York: D. Appleton & Co. [Porter & Coates.]

Logic. By W. Stanley Jevons, LL. D., F. R. S. 18mo., pp. 128. Cloth. New York: D. Appleton Fire and Flame. From the German of Levin Eva M. Johnson. 8vo., pp. 175. Paper, 75 cts. Co. [Porter & Coates.]

Lippincott's Magazine for August.

Science Primers, No. IX. & Co. [Porter & Coates.] Schücking. Translated by New York: D. Appleton &

THE

PENN MONTHLY.

SEPTEMBER, 1876.

THE MONTH.

HE war in the East seems virtually to have terminated; the
Turkish forces having

back the armies of Prince Milan at all points. The unanimity of the Great Powers on the point that there shall be no extension of Moslem rule in Europe, forbids any hope on the part of Turkey for the annexation of Servia. To inflict as much injury as possible while her armies are in the country, to insist on the deposition of Prince Milan, and to retain a few of the frontier fortresses as material guarantees for peace, are the limits to her vengeance, unless she take a leaf out of Prince Bismarck's book and make her enemies pay the expenses of the war. We observe that England has already entered protest against the proposal to depose Prince Milan, which it is feared would renew the old dynastic struggle between his house and that of Karageorgevitch. It is, on the face of things, difficult to see on what principles of International Law the Great Powers can so directly interfere with Turkey's treatment of a rebellious dependency; for Servia is in law a part of the Turkish Empire, as directly and formally as Oude or the territories of the Nizam belong to the English Empire in India. But it has in truth long been a well understood matter among the European powers, that International Law applies with severity only to the obligations of Christian nations among each other, and that, as an outgrowth of the old Civil Law, it applies only to those peoples who have inherited the legal tradi

tions of the Roman Empire. To non-Christian nations, from the Mohammedans down to the Hottentots, it has no strict application. Hence the practice of vesting the consuls of Christian powers, resident outside of Christendom, with judicial authority for the due protection of Christians. The present English government have therefore no right to base their policy on the technicalities of International Law, as Mr. Disraeli seems disposed to do. Non-interference is one of its soundest maxims for most cases; but, as Mr. Gladstone well says, the very object of the Crimean War was to transfer the right of interference from Russia to Europe, by putting Turkey under the wardship of the Great Powers. And now that England has had the chance to strengthen the bulwark of Independent Christians between Russia and the road to Constantinople, Mr. Disraeli has thrown away all the rights secured by the Crimean War, and restored to Russia the prestige of being the sole champion of Eastern Christiandom. On the other hand, he continues to discharge the correlative duties of the arrangement then effected, having just paid the interest on those Turkish bonds which were guaranteed by the English and French governments, on hearing that Turkey herself had no intention to pay them. Such are the astutenesses of Tory diplomacy.

THE close of the session of the English Parliament on the 15th, coincided to a day with that of Congress, and therefore provokes a comparison. It has not been an illustrious session, for the leadership has not been in the hands of men capable or desirous of carrying great measures. Mr. Disraeli explained his success in the last election by the country's desire of quiet, and its dislike of great legislation; and he seems to have set himself to soothe it with a humdrum policy. And yet we believe he has managed to give the country more just causes for irritation, and to make more bad blunders, than any of his recent predecessors during a period of equal duration. Even in the management of legislation, he has not succeeded; his paltry programme of second-rate measures has not been carried out, and at the close of the session he is obliged to throw over to the next session a considerable part of the work shaped out for the one just closed. The debates in the Commons have lacked weight; and on only a single occasion, the debate on the foreign policy in regard

to Turkey, has the interest and the value of the discussion come into comparison with the great field-days under Peel, Palmerston, and Gladstone. The bill to restrict vivisection and similar practices, the Merchant Shipping Act, and the bills amendatory of the Education and Judiciary Acts, are pretty nearly all the important measures passed during an unusually long session; while the most important measure proposed during the session, that for the investigation of the endowments of the two Universities, and their partial redistribution if thought necessary, has been postponed.

It is curious to see how the Conservatives follow the initiative of the Liberals in all these matters. The first two of the measures we have named are concessions to that spirit of philanthropy and hatred of the needless infliction of pain, which the Whigs have so long fostered as a sort of untheological religion; the next two are amendments of Liberal measures; while the last is evidently the fruit of a wise determination on the part of the friends of the Universities to set their house in moderate order, before Foster and Lowe get back to power. But it is among the possibilities that a Liberal Parliament, under the leadership of a Liberal ministry, will have to act on the recommendations of this Tory Commission.

- ONE of the last debates in the English Parliament was on the conduct of the Ministry in releasing the persons held for extradition to the United States under the Treaty of 1842. Lord Granville, who brought up the question, made out very clearly, from the record of past cases, that both England and America had always acted on the principle that a prisoner thus given up may be tried for any offense, not political, of which there is evidence sufficient for his indictment. He especially showed that in two previous cases, in 1865 and 1871, England had allowed such persons to be thus put on trial in the United States without uttering a word of protest. It was conceded by Lord Derby that this had been done; but he alleged as the reason the unwillingness of the English Government, on each occasion, to add to the irritation which then existed in the United States. It is interesting to know that our temper has so much improved since the negotiation of the Treaty of Washington.

In the meantime Mr. David A. Wells, who is quite competent to speak for that side of the question, gives us what he regards as the

true reason of the recent action, and, assuming that international law imposes some restriction upon the nation to whom the prisoner is surrendered, he urges his facts as a sort of justification of England. The facts are, the surrender of Lawrence in 1875, on a charge of forgery, and his subsequent prosecution on a charge of smuggling, by a United States District Attorney, in spite of the express prohibition, first of the President and then of the Attorney-General. As a matter of course this touched our English friends much more closely than any previous case; for it is impossible to feel as Englishmen do towards Protective Tariffs without coming to regard the smuggler as a guerrilla warrior in a holy cause. England's traditional policy in regard to the Spanish Tariff, her systematic promotion of smuggling through Portugal, and her protection of the business by means of Gibraltar, are evidence enough of her deepest feelings. And among the arguments against Protection, one of those used by English writers, and not by them only, is the omnipotence of the smuggler in his contest with the power and the purpose of the nation whose laws he assails.

Mr. Wells's statement shows that there has been a very great degree of disorganization in the Civil Service under Gen. Grant's administration; no English minister would have tolerated such a disobedience of orders for an instant. He dared not have done so, for he is directly responsible for the conduct of his subordinates. Our elaborate political machinery has not succeeded in placing responsibility anywhere, except in the people at large, who neither know nor care for anything beyond a few leading political issues. But in view of Lord Granville's statements and Lord Derby's concessions, it is impossible to see in the facts of the Lawrence case any justification of the conduct of the Disraeli Government, or of Mr. Wells's attack upon Judge Benedict for his refusal to admit the plea that Lawrence could only be tried for the offense for which he had been surrendered. And it is novel doctrine that after the Constitution of the United States has made the treaties with the foreign powers a part of "the supreme law of the land," and has provided for the establishment of courts for its interpretation, International Law can step in and say that those courts have no jurisdiction, even when a recognized official of the executive branch brings questions to their cognizance.

Mr. Wells is equally at fault in speaking of Protective Tariffs as