And there's the Women's Vote: on rival planks Alone should occupy your autumn leisure). In other lands you'll find the same unrest. Where'er the heathen tries to mend his ways, Two Christian vultures join in this diversion. The sombre East is out to sack and slay; "Butchered to make a Roman holiday," And still Bellona asks for more red work; In more, and bigger, armamental bulges. Then there is France, the gay and volatile, Waiting to burst inside the Balkan bubble. Thus, if you've followed my remarks, you'll know Good! pull yourself together, And you'll get through with luck-and decent weather. Owen Seaman. Punch. BOOKS AND AUTHORS. Professor Herbert A. Giles's outline of "The Civilization of China," in the "Home University Library" (Henry Holt & Co.) is especially timely just now when the changes which are taking place in China with kaleidoscopic rapidity are engaging the world's attention, but it would have been delightful and illuminating reading at any time, so graphic and compact is the account which it gives of Chinese customs and institutions. The author writes not only out of abundant scholarship but from personal observation. He has in a high degree the faculty of condensation without any loss of picturesqueness; and his little book, which may easily be read through in a couple of hours, will leave the average reader a comfortable sense of knowing more about China and the Chinese than he ever knew before, and of being a re pository of information for others less enlightened. Prof. William Witherlie Lawrence of Columbia lectured on ancient myths under the Hewitt Foundation for 1911. He has gathered his studies in a book, confessing frankly that they were intended for a popular audience and therefore have been pitched on a lower plane than he would use for a more scholarly crowd of listeners. He hardly needs the apology for "Medieval Story" since, though cast in a popular mold, the whole presents a profound theory of the myth as following the development of Democracy. He studies Beowulf, which has no sense of a native land; Roland, which is all patriotism; The Arthurian Romances, the beginnings of Social Righteousness; The Holy Grail, the unpractical idealism of the nobility; Reynard and Robin Hood, the practical democracy of the peasants; The Canterbury Tales, Democracy at its first raw beginnings. He certainly expounds his theory well and convincingly. The Columbia University Press. "The Wrong Woman," by Charles D. Stewart, is written in a leisurely style At the that will charm and delight. start, the situation is most original; Janet Smith sets out across the Texas prairies to take an examination for a teacher's certificate, loses her way, and finds shelter in a sheep ranch, where she is protected by the hero of the story, Steve Brown. Another attempt to reach the county seat results in a there is yet a freshness throughout the entire story. The situations are never intense; even the flutter among the Texan housewives fails to impress the reader very seriously, and he has a comfortable assurance that all is happy and well. The book will fit certain moods excellently. Houghton Mifflin Company. Eight of the promised forty volumes of the new "Tudor Shakespeare" have now been published by the Macmillan Company. These are Romeo and Juliet, the first Part of Henry IV, Troilus and Cressida, The Merchant of Venice, Coriolanus, As You Like It, the first Part of Henry VI and Henry V. The series is under the general editorship of Professor William Allan Neilson of Harvard University and Professor Ashley Horace Thorndike of Columbia University, and the text used is The disthe copyrighted Neilson text. tinguishing feature of the series is that each of the plays is under the special editorship of an 'American Shakespeare scholar,-a plan which ensures a wider scope of study and exposition than that adopted in many editions of Shakespeare, in which the work is that of a Romeo and Juliet, for single editor. example, is edited by the general editors: The Merchant of Venice by Professor Ayres of Columbia University; As You Like It by Professor Shackford of Wellesley College, etc. But the general plan is the same. Each play is furnished with a brief historical and critical introduction, notes, a glossary and a list of variant readings. dainty volumes, clearly and attractively printed, bound in green cloth with gilt top, with decorative end-papers and a photogravure frontispiece, are certain to be as alluring to school and college students as to the general reader. They are of a size to slip easily into the pocket; and, altogether, they are a marvel of cheapness and beauty. The NINETEENTH CENTURY AND AFTER 524 III. The Lantern Bearers. Chapter XXIV. By Mrs. Alfred Sidgwick, Author of "The Severins," etc. (To be concluded.) . IV. The German Reichstag Election. By Joseph King, M. P. 533 CONTEMPORARY REVIEW 539 548 V. Diana of the Highways. By F. G. Aflalo. FORTNIGHTLY REVIEW 557 NATION 562 SATURDAY REVIEW 565 IX. The Dishonest Naturalist. By Horace Hutchinson. 567 570 EYE-WITNESS 571 ACADEMY 573 WESTMINSTER GAZETTE X. The Rescue; or Gallant Behavior at Oxford. By Evoe. PUNCH FOR SIX DOLLARS, remitted directly to the Publishers, THE LIVING AGE will be punctually for warded for a year, free of postage, to any part of the United States. To Canada the postage is 50 cents per annum. Remittances should be made by bank draft or check, or by post-office or express money order if possible. If neither of these can be procured, the money should be sent in a registered letter. All postmasters are obliged to register letters when requested to do so. Drafts, checks, express and money orders should be made payable to the order of THE LIVING AGE Co. Single Copies of THE LIVING AGE, 15 cents. STRIKES. A year of unparalleled industrial strife has just concluded. We are warned that 1912 may plunge us into conflicts waged on a wider scale, and with increasing bitterness. And the bewildered public, threatened suddenly, as by the opening of volcanic fissures, asks whence these "upheavals," these "risings of labor," this "extraordinary wave of discontent and violence" rolling through the country? Last June a strike broke out in Southampton. Strikes have broken out constantly, in all industries, for the last fifty years. Southampton, surely, was but following the familiar precedent. But this south-coast seamen's strike ran through the seaports of England, and passed on to the transport workers of the inland cities, with the contagious quickness of conflagration. In August the country was a-flame with industrial discord. Communications were held up, food supplies ceased, traffic was regulated by "passes" issued by strike committees, railway stations were occupied by troops carrying ball cartridge, the man in the street found the stable security of his life vanishing in a moment. What had happened? If we compare the events of the past summer with the industrial propaganda carried on for the last year or two in England, and with recent industrial outbreaks in France, Sweden, Italy, America, Australia, and other countries, we shall see that this has happened. The English working man has now, for the first time in his history, been thoroughly taught the principles of the new Continental TradeUnionism-the Syndicalist principle of the multiplied strike, the sympathetic strike, and the culminating general strike. Having learnt these principles he has proceeded to translate them into direct action. The extent of the Syn dicalist rising in England last year may be rapidly summarized. First came the multiplied strike. In the two months of June and July one hundred and two trade conflicts broke out; that is at the rate of over two per day. To the opening strike of the Southampton and other seamen in June (prefaced by a conference at which delegates from Continental ports were present), sixtysix further strikes were added by the end of July. The figures for the same month in the previous year show a total of fourteen.1 These sixty-six strikes, together with the June conflicts still proceeding, involved in all 111,783 transport workers throughout the United Kingdom; 1,895 miners in South Wales, and 6,417 miners in Manchester and Rotherham; 1,120 men in the building trade in Nottingham; 1,474 men in iron and steel works near Flint; 1,488 men in the engineering and shipbuilding trades at Lincoln and West Hartlepool; 1,093 textile workers in Derby; 500 workers in the Potteries; 401 millers in York; 197 chemical workers in Newcastle. By June 28th all the Atlantic liners at Liverpool were without crews, and food supplies were stopped at Hull. In the latter place rioting broke out, and Metropolitan police were dispatched thither, to Cardiff, and to Manchester. Rioting broke out also at Cardiff, where food became scarce, prices rose, and conflicts with the police were numerous. In August one hundred further strikes began; and in this month, and in September, the sympathetic strike appeared. The trade of London was partially paralyzed. There was a shortage of meat and vegetables at Smithfield and at Covent Garden, limited supplies being got through under 1 "Board of Trade Labor Gazette," August, 1911. |