mense numbers of plates and dishes are smashed in the course of the year." If Frenchmen can keep their feet under circumstances perilous to the rest of the world, they are naturally not proof against shocks. And in these crowded dining-rooms the wonder is that accidents were not constantly occurring.

Déjeuner over, Madame J— mère accompanied me for a stroll on the boulevard. What a difference between the Paris Sentier and the London City!

The weather was neither balmy nor sultry, yet the broad pavement of the Boulevard Bonne Nouvelle was turned into a veritable recreation ground. Here, in the very heart of commercial Paris, as in the Parc Monceaux or the Champs Elysées, ladies and nursemaids sat in rows, whilst children trundled their hoops or played ball. So long as out-of-door life is practicable, French folks will not spend the day within four walls, this habit, perhaps, greatly accounting for the national cheerfulness. Delightful it was to see how old and young enjoyed themselves amid the prevailing noise and bustle, the enormously wide pavement having room for all. The boulevard is, indeed, alike lounge, playground, and promenade. On the boulevard is focussed the life of Paris, and, to my thinking, nowhere is this life more worth studying than in the immediate neighborhood of the noble Porte St.-Denis.

As we strolled to and fro I had a very interesting and suggestive conversation with Madame J—, senior, and as her share of it throws an interest

ing light upon French modes of thought, I venture to repeat a portion.

"Yes," she said, "my husband and myself are both well pleased with our daughter-in-law. She brought our son

no fortune"

"No fortune?" I interrupted, incredulously.

"That is to say, no fortune to speak

of, nothing to be called a dowry. When advising Marcel as to the choice of a wife, we did not encourage him to look out for money; on the contrary, whilst he could have married into moneyed families, he chose, with our approbation, a portionless girl, but one well fitted by character and education to be an aid and companion to her husband. Suppose, for instance, that he had married a girl, say, with capital bringing in two or three thousand francs a year. She would have been quite above keeping the books and living in the restaurant, and most likely would have needed her entire income for dress and amusements. No, it is very bad policy for a young man who has his way to make to look out for a dot. I have always found it so, more than one young man of my acquaintance having been ruined by a pretentious and thriftless wife. My daughter-in-law, as you see, takes kindly to her duties and position. She is amiable, intelligent and simple in her habits. With such a wife Marcel is sure to get on."

For the next few years this young couple will give their minds entirely to business, foregoing comfort, ease, and recreation in order to insure the future and lay the foundations of ultimate fortune. By-and-by, when affairs have been put on a sure footing, they will take a pretty little flat near. Monsieur's place will be occasionally taken by a head waiter; Madame's duties at the desk relegated to a lady bookkeeper. English and French ideals of life differ. To the French mind any sacrifices appear light when made in the interest of the future-above all, the future of one's children. Doubtless by the time this young restaurateur and his wife have reached middle age they will have amassed a small fortune, and, long before old age overtakes them, be able to retire.

Let no one suppose that sordidness is the necessary result of such matter

of-fact views. Here, at least, high commercial standard and rules of conduct go hand in hand with uncompromising laboriousness and thrift; for in France the stimulus to exertion, the lode-star of existence, the corner-stone of domestic polity, is concern for the beings as yet unborn, the worthy foundation of a family.

The super-excellent education now received by every French citizen is not thrown away. I found restaurant

keeping by no means incompatible with literary and artistic taste-an intelligent appreciation of good books, good pictures, and good music.

On our return to the restaurant for tea we found the large dining-rooms deserted except for three somnolent figures in one corner. One waiter was enjoying his afternoon out; his companions were getting a nap with their feet on chairs. All was spick and span-in readiness for the four or five hundred diners at six o'clock. Meantime, we had the place to ourselves.

In the midst of our tea-drinking a gentlemanly looking individual, wearing a tall hat and frock-coat, entered, and, after a short colloquy with the young master, passed out again.

"You would never guess that genLongman's Magazine.

tleman's errand," Marcel said, smiling as he re-seated himself at the tea-table. "He looked to me like a rather distinguished customer," I replied; "some Government functionary on half-pay, or small rentier." Marcel smiled again.

"That well-dressed gentleman, then, supplies us with toothpicks, which his wife makes at home. He calls once a month, and our orders amount to about a franc a day. I daresay he and his wife between them make from thirty to forty francs a week and contrive to keep up appearances upon that sum.

It

is an instance of what we call la misère dorée" (gilded poverty).

Truly one lives to learn! That retailer of cure-dents, in his silk hat and frock-coat, was another novel experience of Parisian life-an experience not without its pathos. I shall not easily forget the gentlemanly looking man with his long favoris and his odd industry. I add that the Paris Cityi. e., "Le Sentier" since July last has followed English initiative, warehouses and offices being now closed therein from noon on Saturday till Monday morning.

M. Betham-Edwards,

Officier de l'Instruction Publique de France.

Lord Curzon's visit to the Persian Gulf is the symptom of the present need to reassert our traditional policy that the geographical position of the Persian Gulf, on the immediate flank of our line of communications with India, Ceylon, Australasia and the Far East generally, makes it impossible for Great Britain to tolerate the establishment in those waters of any rival foreign Power. The capital sunk is great.

It is owing to British effort, and at the cost of British lives and treasure, in the past, that the Gulf is now comparatively free from piracy and open to the trade and shipping of the world. Though the overwhelming majority of this trade is still in British hands, and carried in British ships, other nations are now competing; and there was never a time when it was so necessary to watch events there with close at

tention. The Russian press-and it is to be remembered such expressions of opinion would not be permitted, by the rigid censorship, if they did not, in some degree, reflect the mind of the Russian Government-constantly refers to Russian aspirations towards the establishment of a Russian port in, or in the neighborhood of, the Persian Gulf. Although any unbiassed visitor

to the Persian Gulf will still be struck by the huge preponderance of British shipping and British trade, every effort is being made and every nerve strained to build up and foster a trade "connection" by sea with Russia. No one can cavil at any nation pushing its own trade, in any part of the world, by every legitimate means in its power; but when such quasi-mercantile means are manifestly being employed to a political end, and fictitious "interests" are evidently being created with a view to their after use as bargaining material, it is well, and also interesting, to watch the process closely.

Some three or four years ago, a Russian trading ship was seen for the first time in the Persian Gulf. Her trial trip was far from being a commercial success; the goods she brought were disposed of with difficulty, at low prices, and she returned to Odessa almost empty. The loss was considerable, and the experiment could only be repeated with the financial assistance of the Russian Government. This was given with no niggard hand. A subsidy was granted, and the experiment was continued. Within the past year a definite agreement has been arrived at between the Russian Government and an Odessa steamship company, according to which, in return for a subsidy of £20,000 annually for the next twelve years, the company will build new ships specially adapted to local conditions, and will despatch four such steamers every year from Odessa to Persian Gulf ports. Consular and

commercial agents have been appointed at various places to study the demands and requirements of local markets, and to nurse the infant trade. So-called "museums," displaying samples of Russian goods and manufactures with full details as to price, quality, &c., have been established at various points for the dissemination of commercial information. Frequent opportunity has been found for Russian cruisers to patrol the Gulf, calling at various ports and exchanging civilities with the native rulers thereof. Recently a Russian and French cruiser made the tour of the Gulf in company; one may well imagine that the importance of the Franco-Russian alliance lost nothing in the telling, in the course of the conversations with local magnates. The Russian press has made no pretence of concealing its satisfaction that the appearance of Russian warships foreshadows the decline and fall of British influence and predominance.

Perhaps no one who has not passed some time in the East can fully appreciate the immense importance of prestige. English statesmen have appreciated as little as merchants the extent to which Asiatics are open to impressions received through the eye. Unlettered according to our Western standards, and without contemporary literature, the Asiatic has small chance of being able to appreciate anything he does not see, or feel, or anything which lies beyond the ken of his own immediate surroundings. What inference are the Arab tribes, inhabiting the coasts of the Persian Gulf, likely to draw from the object-lesson deliberately offered to them? In their fathers' time, nay in their own, down to within the last three or four years, the only ships of war ever seen were British ships, the only flag-the white ensign. Now they see the ships of other nations, and are quite acute enough to appreciate the size and guns

and fighting tops of "show" ships, as compared with the more familiar British gunboat. The better classes are, no doubt, perfectly aware that the real naval strength of the foreigner, as compared with Great Britain, is not in direct proportion with the size of the individual ships which happen to visit this or that port, but still it is hard to get away from the impression that the efforts, deliberately made, have not been entirely in vain, and that British prestige has suffered.

No one is so well qualified to correct any such false impression in the Arab mind as Lord Curzon. Few men, if any, have so intimate a knowledge of the history and the problems of the Middle East, and no one is more capable of dealing with them. In a private capacity he has visited and studied the countries bordering on the Persian Gulf, and his books, though published some years ago, may still be described as the acknowledged text-books on the subject. Some of the opinions he has expressed, as an individual author, are, The Saturday Review.

no doubt, far from palatable to foreign nations that would fain avail themselves of the Pax Britannica to push their own trade and to create more or less spurious "interests" in those waters. It is probable that this tour will be the signal for an outburst of anglophobe misrepresentation in the Russian press; this, however, may be viewed with equanimity. Of the trade and other British interests connected with the Persian Gulf, a large proportion is British-Indian, and considerable colonies of British-Indian subjects are settled at most, if not all, of the ports to be visited by Lord Curzon. Moreover, among Eastern peoples, accustomed to patriarchal government, the personal element is an important factor. It is well, therefore, that those native rulers, such as the Sultan of Muscat, and the chiefs of Bahrein and Koweit, with whom we have special and intimate relations, should have an opportunity of seeing in the flesh and speaking to the Viceroy, representing His Britannic Majesty the Emperor of India.

Amid fiscal controversies and speculations on the future of this or that nation or civilization, a question has arisen which concerns the future of all civilizations. At the recent meetings of the Royal Society the meaning of radium was discussed, and Sir William Ramsay and Sir Oliver Lodge have given their views of the significance of the discovery. The properties of the new element have been explained to the world at length, and most people are familiar by hearsay with the stuff, which is worth £15,000 an ounce, if an ounce could be put on the market. But now we are given on the best authority

the deduction of scientists from the discovery, and a very startling deduction it is. It appears that elements of high atomic weight, such as uranium and radium, are constantly decomposing into elements of low atomic weight. "In doing so they give off heat, and also possess the curious property of radio-activity. What these elements are is unknown, except in one case; one of the products of the decomposition of the emanations from radium is helium." Now gold is an element of high atomic weight. Is gold changing, and is the process capable of being accelerated by human ingenu

far it is more probable that gold may be transformed into copper than copper into gold, but there is always a possibility that science may achieve the converse. If such a time ever comes, the old charlatans of the Middle Ages will be strangely justified of their heresies.

The transmutation of metals was the pet scheme of the alchemists, and many were their dreams of a potion which should transform iron into gold. So far modern speculation seems to point to a natural process of transmutation, supposing such transmutation exists; but what is a natural process to-day may to-morrow be induced or accelerated by science.

Do people realize what would happen if this mediæval dream ever became a modern reality? If it became possible simply and expeditiously to transmute lead and iron into gold or silver, the basis of our civilization would disappear. Wealth in kind would become the only form of riches. The stores of bullion at the banks would become simply heaps of scrap-iron. The great financial centres of the world, which owe their importance to their gold reserves, would lose the basis of their pre-eminence. The change, perhaps, would not come at once. For a little while coined gold and silver would remain at a fictitious value; but as the aggregate of precious metal increased immoderately and its intrinsic value fell, the nominal value, which must bear some relation to real value, would also decline. A sovereign would become no more than a dishonored bank

note, representing, it is true, a certain amount of labor or produce, but incapable of realization in any known value, because the basis of values had fallen. Banking would come to an end; reserves of capital would cease to have any practical meaning; all forms of investment would cease; the gold-producing countries, like the Transvaal and West Australia, would be bankrupted; and the elaborate system of commerce which mankind has built up during a thousand years would crumble about our ears, for there would be no standard, no little rod, by which to measure prices.

After the first confusion of the catastrophe was over, and men had time to face the problem, they would realize that there was no way of escape. The old civilization had gone for ever. A standard of value is necessary for all people living in a complex society under different modes of life and at considerable distances from each other. And such a standard must possess three qualities,—it must not be a common commodity, but something relatively scarce; it must exist in some portable form; and it must be, roughly speaking, imperishable. A standard of value is not the same thing as a medium of exchange, but it is impossible wholly to separate them. We cannot have some clumsy and impracticable standard, and a simple and practicable medium, for it must always be possible to transpose the two, and use as the medium of exchange that which is also the standard of value. A bank-note is a convenient counter, but only because we can change it for gold by crossing the street. The essential conditions of a standard, it seems to us, are fulfilled only by the precious metals. They are rare, they admit of presentation in a handy form, and, what is more, they can be made to bear the impress of the State, which fixes their value; and, finally, they are for