England and Russia, if the utterances of the semi-official newspapers be any guide as to its drift. Especially pathetic is the English appeal to Germany, as the government which holds the balance of power, and can bring everything right if it will. "Thank you for the compliment," is Germany's answer in substance; "I believe I am big and strong enough to whip you, or Russia either. But then, as your Premier puts it, each nation's chief duty is to look after its own interests. So before I interfere, I'll know what it is for." An answer which does not at all rejoice France-France hoping for a general scrimmage in which she and Austria might have Russia's help to wipe out some not very old scores. On the other hand, it seems that Turkey's two heirs apparent, Austria and Russia, have come or are rapidly coming to an understanding on the subject. The latter has made a proposal for joint invasion, Austria to take charge of Bosnia and Herzogovina, and Russia to occupy Bulgaria; and Austria seems to be coquetting with it. She would not long hesitate, if she only knew that Bismarck had no objections, and she could keep the Hungarians from revolting against new additions of Slavonic territory to the dual Empire. will not agree to the construction of new Slavonic states. another friend whom Russia must keep in good humor. the control of Mediterranean commerce, and does not like to see so much of it pass under Russian control. So she makes a public announcement to Europe as to what a fine large army she has "just to please our people, you know; it has cost them a pretty penny." And then she hints that if Russia must have the Euxine, she in all fairness might very well get Tunis and the Italian Tyrol. And so on all sides the solution that English policy has striven to avoid or put off seems to be growing every day nearer and more certain.

But she

Italy is

She wants

IN the actual theatre of the struggle, no event of military importance has occurred since the expiry of the truce. Neither against the Servians nor the Montenegrins have the Turks made any further headway. The best military movement of the Turks has been their proposal for a six months' truce, keeping everything in statu quo. They have everything to gain by such a proposal. The indignation of the Christian nations would grow cool by that time; the good services of England and the general dislike of war would help to a solution more favorable to them than any as yet proposed. And

the Servians could not by any possibility keep up their army through the winter. Therefore those gentle lambs, the Pashas, are eager for a good long cessation of hostilities. But as Servia is astute enough to refuse even to consider such a proposal, and as Russia has no intention to urge it on her, this fine diplomatic move has failed, except as it enables the Turkish party in European diplomacy unjustly to throw upon Servia the blame of protracting the struggle.

The Pashas have shown themselves not so good at diplomacy as at fighting, because of the limitations of their moral understanding. As they do not share the moral convictions and standards of other European nations, they of course could not foresee the vast injury they were to inflict upon themselves by their wholesale atrocities in Bulgaria and elsewhere. But so far as they do understand the public opinion of Europe, they do, with some help from their English mentors, know how to address their policy to the demands of that opinion. And it is not to be forgotten that during the present war the Turks have displayed no ordinary ability as soldiers. Russia will have no easy access to Constantinople; for never since the first conversion of the Ottoman race, perhaps never since the times of the early Caliphs, was the enthusiasm of the Mohammedan nations for their creed so powerful as at present. The great religious, i. e. military revival which has been going on over nearly all Asia, will make itself felt in the coming struggle, if there is to be one. The Asiatic recklessness of life will be raised to its highest potency by the religious conviction that death for Islam ensures immediate entrance on the most exalted joys of paradise. And the Christian populations still under Turkish rule will suffer most dreadfully. The alternative of circumcision or the sword will probably be the only choice left them. For the evil spirit will not be cast out without prostrating and rending its victim in going. Already the softas who rule the populace of Stamboul are threatening to raise the green flag of the Jihad, or crescentade.

THE wide-spread agitation which has been convulsing England with regard to the Eastern policy of the Tory ministry, culminated in a deputatlon from a monster meeting in London, which sent up to the Government a deputation headed by the Lord Mayor. The Premier evaded meeting them; but Lord Derby, who is Secretary

for Foreign Affairs, heard what they had to say, and made a reply which is of importance as indicating exactly how far official England may be expected to go in compliance with the express wishes of real England. He was equally opposed to non-intervention and to forcible intervention; to the latter on the ground that no power, not even Russia, would give help, while one would be actively hostile. Nor could he see his way to demanding any sort of political autonomy for the three provinces; nothing could be secured from the Porte but some sort or degree of local self-government, whose guarantees he confessed it would be difficult, if not impossible, to enforce.

It is not to be wondered at that the Deputation voted that these explanations were unsatisfactory, and the agitation must go on. It has brought Mr. Gladstone more and more to the front as the true leader of the English people, and is helping all classes to discern the difference between him and the political mountebank into whose hands they have given themselves. His refusal to treat the matter as a mere party question, beginning with his request that men of all parties be asked to hear his great speech at Blackheath to the people of Greenwich, has given tone to the whole agitation. Speaking for the Liberals to the Ministry, he says: "We are willing and desirous that there should be no change of Government, if you will do your duty. But we cannot stand the continuance of your policy on this question. We don't want you to go to the wall and to the winds. But if you will not change that policy, to the wall and to the winds you must go." The premier's only response to all this protesting, is a candid avowal that he does not agree with the nation, and does not mean to do the nation's bidding in this matter, to which he adds much coarse personal abuse of Gladstone and other Liberal leaders, whom he actually describes as "worse than the authors of the Bulgarian atrocities." In any other mouth such language would be monstrous and unpardonable; but it must be remembered that the ex-novelist has given us no reason to believe that he holds the authors of those atrocities in any especial abhorrence, or has had his sympathies more excited by the sufferings of their victims, than-as John Bright puts it-they would have been on his hearing of "a sudden massacre of the dogs that prowl the streets of Constantinople." In N. P. Willis's Pencillings by the Way (London, 1835,) he tells of hearing from the lips of young Disraeli

a description of "an impalement he had seen in upper Egypt," and says that "the circumstantiality of the account was equally horrible and amusing," and it seems that this "amusing" method of disposing of prisoners is that now affected by the Turks on Servian territory. Several independent and unimpeachable authorities assure us of the fact, and it seems that even women near their confinement have been among the victims.

THE British Association's Section of Anthropology was the scene of a somewhat exciting discussion, which illustrates the curious unwillingness of most scientific men to even listen to the evidence of what is unusual and inexplicable in the action of the human mind. Prof. Barrett, a young physicist, trained under the eye of Prof. Tyndall, read a paper stating some curious experiences and experiments of his own in regard to clairvoyance and what is called spiritrapping. There was nothing new in the paper-nothing in its inferences which had not been pointed out long ago by Count Agenor de Gasparin in his Science and Spiritualism, a book written to refute the pretences of our spirit-mongers by one who possessed all their exceptional powers, and who was able to surpass their wonders by his own, as Moses surpassed the magicians of Egypt. The chief significance of the paper was that it was the testimony of a man whose powers of scientific observation had been carefully trained. It contained none of the inexplicable but "fishy" stories told, none of the rash inferences drawn, by Mr. Crookes and Mr. Wallace, both eminent men of science, but believers in spiritualism. It simply said, "There is something in these strange performances, I am convinced." But Dr. Carpenter and some others treated the writer and his paper with lofty disdain, refusing even to take into consideration any evidence on the subject, unless all these things could be repeated before a full section of the British Association. Whether he will do the same with the reports of the Transit of Venus, when they are completed, remains to be seen.

Science has been laboring for a long time to disprove and obliterate all the lines which are supposed to run through the natural universe, declaring all such demarcations to be mere conventional horizons, devoid of scientific or objective truth. But Dr. Carpenter and most of his brethren refuse to hear anything in disproof of the validity of the lines which are conventionally supposed to circumscribe human perceptions and volitions. The facts presented by

Prof. Barrett, and the residuum of fact in the reports of Messrs. Crookes and Wallace affect those lines, and nothing more.

THE dust of the political conflict in the West has cleared away, and discloses to us as the result a drawn battle. The October elections in Ohio and Indiana have not decided how the November election will go. Had the Republicans carried both States, they could have done without New York; but since the Democrats have carried Indiana, and will probably do it again in November, all now hangs upon the vote of New York. If Mr. Tilden's own State supports him as Ohio has supported Mr. Hayes, then his election seems certain. As the Tribune says, in an outburst of candor, "There is a good deal of bluster on the surface, but both sides realize that it is an uncomfortably clear case of nip and tuck."

On the other hand the Western elections do seem to indicate revival of popular confidence in the Republican party, or at least a popular conviction that with all its faults it is not the worse of the two. In each of the two States the Republicans have won back four Congressmen from the Democrats, and if a similar change takes place in other northern States, the Democratic control of the House will end with the present Congress. The experiment of electing a Democratic House by the votes of dissatisfied Republicans, to keep a Republican Senate in check, has not been a success.

The Indiana defeat is ascribed by some Republican papers to the loss of the votes of those who supported the Greenback candidates, as they are called. Up to the October elections it was confidently pronounced that the two parties were equally represented in that camp, although every prominent man who supports the Cooper and Cary ticket comes from the Republican party, while the most decided Soft Money men in the Democratic ranks have made their wry faces quietly, and are supporting Mr. Tilden. The organization of a third party, in the manner adopted, was a great mistake; but it was a very natural proceeding on the part of those who had been treated with such contemptuous abuse as has been heaped upon the believers in Soft Money by every prominent organ of the Republican party. It is but natural that men should not care to remain in affiliation with a party which can find no epithets too coarse to throw at them, and which politely offers them the dilemma that they are either moon-struck fools or arrant knaves. We think it probable that before the present election is over some Republican editors