term of years' apprenticeship to one of those privileged burgesses. Candidates are elected for life, and are entitled to vote for parliamentary representatives of the county, division, or borough, to which they belong.

In times past, when the franchise was confined to the aristocratic few, these Freemen were naturally held in high estimation. Then they were a power in the land, and, as they generally stood united, their "vote and interest" was of considerable importance at election-times.

Alnwick always awakes to unusual activity on this morning of St. Mark's Day. Around the White Swan, Black Swan, Turk's Head, and Star Hotels, groups of gossiping townsfolks are congregated, recalling "the glorious days of the old stage-coach," when Alnwick was a town of bustling importance on the route between London and Edinburgh. Every quaint little tavern has its knot of idlers, every tortuous alley-way has vomited its complement of spectators into the street, while around the Market Cross and St. Michael's Pant there are still larger knots of loungers speculating on the events of the day -who will be "first through," who will "win the boundaries," how many equestrian disasters will befall, and so on.

Meantime, sparse droves of country people are beginning to bustle along Bondgate, down Pottergate and Clayport, and up Watergate and the Peth, toward the centre of interest. Every one looks for the holly-bush as he walks along-for the huge holly at the door is the immemorial insignia of such as aspire to the Freedom of Alnwick on this au

To their credit be it said, they usually "plumped" on the side of liberty and reform, and in opposition to the conservative interests of the Tory lord of the manor. Historians have been too chary in according to these Freemen full credit for the part they played in patiently assisting the development of those great principles of parliamentary reform that England now enjoys. The names of great reform leaders naturally become household words, while the particular class of voters that sent them to St. James's is overlooked. The Greys of Northumberland, to take a single example, owed their seats in the House of Commons to the Free-spicious day. At what time the great castlemen of Alnwick and Morpeth, who, in firm phalanx and with sometimes perilous perseverance, did battle against the Tory nominee of Percy, Duke of Northumberland. part that the Greys enacted during the great struggle that culminated in the Reform Bill of 1832 belongs to history; and many instances might be cited where the Freemen's vote turned the wavering balance against aristocratic despotism.

The

Inasmuch as the various charters of these Freemen date back to feudal times, it is not surprising that the act of bestowing immunities and privileges invariably involved some mortifying humiliation. Thus, in one town the candidate for freedom is led round certain streets like a horse with his head in a hempen halter. In another, he is swung feet and hands by and between two officers of the Freemen's Guild, and thus for half a score times has his hams brought into vigorous colfision with a huge round bowlder on the town

moor

r; while in Alnwick, as all the textbooks tell you, "the person who takes up his Freedom is obliged by a clause in the charter to jump into an adjacent bog, in which sometimes he must sink to his chin."

The subscriber jumped into this "bog" nearly a score of years since; and, on the 25th day of April, 1874, while revisiting old scenes in England, he again stood beside the Stygian mud-pool, and beheld a dozen candidates pass" through the Well." Here was a most grotesque and extraordinarily amusing rite celebrated on an extensive common, in the open daylight, and yet there was not a single reporter present. Imagine such a condition of affairs in enterprising America! Nor does it appear-and the memory of man serves not to the contrary-that a single member of that industrious fraternity ever witnessed the ceremony of making an Alnwick Freeman. Nothing approaching a description, so far as the present writer knows, has ever been printed. The following sketch, therefore, of the scenes witnessed last year on St. Mark's Day is hereby offered, as ingenious inventors say, to "supply a felt want."

clock and Town-Hall clock agree in booming forth, stroke for stroke, the hour of ten, the excitement has reached fever-heat. Everybody is now in the market-place. The Freemen, in esse, gallantly mounted on all sorts of steeds colts, broken-down thorough-breds, shaggy-hoofed Belgians, and huge Cleveland roadsters-each man in his "Sunday claes," and his grandsire's sword clanking awkwardly by his side, are drawn up in front of the Town Hall. Their friends, some mounted, more afoot, surround them, and recount to button-holed listeners the memorable achievements of their several years. Presently emerge from the ancient portals of the Hall, and gravely descend the broad stone stairway, the four chamberlains, in cockedhat and flowing wig, enveloped in ample goldlaced cloaks, breeches, and silk stockings, and bearing proudly their white wands of office. Accompanying them is the castle bailiff, in equally conspicuous regalia, somewhat more austere bearing, and more pronounced withal about the calves. It is this high official's duty to see that the twelve candidates comply with every provision of the ancient charter; failing in any jot or tittle of which he will report to his noble master, the Duke of Northumberland, when there will certainly be trouble.

While they are organizing the departure to "the Well," it may not be amiss to glance briefly at the privileges these Freemen enjoy.

By grant of King John, "Ayden Forest," or, as it is commonly called, Alnwick Moor, belongs to the Freemen forever; or, to speak more accurately, for so long as they strictly observe the conditions imposed. This "forest" consists of three thousand acres of land, rolling in a billowy slope westward from the town until it attains a considerable elevation, and its western boundary, at Lemington Ridge. It is mostly inferior land, more or less covered with purple heather and the yellow-blooming gorse; but it is "a fine sheepwalk," and a few hundred acres near Alnwick, and bounded on the north by the parkwall of the duke, is very superior soil. Of

the natural beauties of its landscape it is unnecessary to speak, except to remark that the ancient charter distinctly forbids any interference with them by any form of cultivation. The gorse or the heather may be burned, but not hoed or otherwise eradicated by any implement; while no crop whatsoever, except of Nature's original planting, shall be raised upon any portion of it. Each Freeman is allowed the pasturage of a stipu lated number of sheep, oxen, cows, or horses, or he may sell his privilege from year to year; and, as no fences are permitted except at the boundaries, the flocks are cared for by shepherds. Thus, for centuries, the Freemen, closely watched by grasping lords of the house of Percy, maintained their moor intact. But, a quarter of a century since, an infusion of restless spirits was received into the hitherto staid and eminently cautious body. The old charter was torn from its sanctuary, examined, and learnedly criticised by these rash reformers. Meetings were held, speeches made, and resolutions passed to the effect that a certain portion of Alnwick Moor be straightway inclosed and cultivated as arable land for the use of said Freemen, etc. The duke sat in his castle hard by the silver Alne, and to these resolutions he gave no token of his approval or disapproval. when the ploughshare pierced the virgin soil of Ayden, the Percy made wassail in his hall; and his forester and his woodmen were directed to inclose one thousand acres of the moor that adjoined his park. It was the fairest portion of the tract, and it had been surveyed two centuries before in anticipation of that fatal ploughshare. This was the penalty imposed by a violation of the charter:

But,

one third of the land to revert to the lord of the manor." And there it will remain, so far as the Freemen are concerned, till the crack of doom.

The duke's piper, mounted on a gayly-caparisoned horse, led by a groom, having now joined the high officials, the cavalcade is ready to move. Foremost rides the piper, skirling a merry tune, his attire apparently composed of bottle-green velvet, bespangled with huge silver buckles; then the bailiff severe of mien, mounted on a noble charger, followed by the chamberlains, on substantial but excessively gentle steeds; then come the dozen aspirants for Freedom, riding in as many styles and degrees of awkwardness as might be imagined from their various pursuits and modes of life. A tailor, a hatter, a vintner, a tanner, a clogger, an eggler, a carrier, three farmers, and two of uncertain occupation, form the group; and chaff and criticism and laughter greet this group on every side. Through Narrowgate, along Bailiff gate, and up the shady "Rattan Raw," the piper leads the way, until a noble old Gothic archway is passed, and we are fairly on the moor-edge. The clayey road, stretching far up over the rolling hills of purple and green, looks like a huge saurian; and, as we ride down the steep declivity to the "Stocking Burn," we find that it is excessively slippery from recent rains. The eager pedestrians hail this as a joyful circumstance, and keep remarking, "There'll be fun on this hill on the way back."

tional progress made and making within the last ten years.

Never before in the history of mankind has the effort been made to educate an entire people all at once-to drag them up from utter ignorance into the light of culture and civilization through the instrumentality of absolute power; and the success is almost as wonderful as the attempt. Under Saïd Pasha's administration, in 1862, the government appropriations annually for educational purposes (then in the hands of the imaums, or priests) amounted to about twenty thousand dollars. In 1872 the government appropriated four hundred thousand dollars for that purpose, with large and liberal donations from the khédive and his sons, to the tune of many thousands more, to the private schools, native and foreign, Mussulman and Christian, male and female.

In Mehemet Ali's time there were but six thousand boys receiving public instruction; and this such as the native priests were capable of giving them-which, of course, was very little-they, as a class, being ignorant of all but the Koran and a little ciphering. The schools of the missionaries, established under his successors, very limited in means and extent, have only been useful to a few of the children of the native Christians handful of the population.

a

The schools now established, under the supervision of European instructors, such as the learned and skilled Inspector of Schools, M. Doa-a Swiss-and Mr. Rogers, late British consul at Cairo, now School Superintendent and one of the best Arabic scholars among the foreign residents-are intended to educate the whole growing male community of Egypt. Separate schools, richly endowed, have been established for the education of girls-a startling novelty-patronized by the royal princess, and presided over by Miss Whately, the niece of the Archbishop of Dublin, whose zeal is only surpassed by her ability.

Already the male pupils in these schools are estimated at one hundred thousand in the cities and the villages. As the whole number of boys in Egypt proper would not exceed three hundred and fifty thousand, it will be seen how large a proportion are now being educated greater in fact than in most countries calling themselves civilized, for the proportion is fourfold greater than in Russia, and greater even than that of Italy.

Education in Egypt has now been made compulsory, as it is in Prussia, and even the female children of the fellahs, or rural laborers, are to be educated and fitted for domestic service, so as to replace the present negro slaves-one of the strongest blows at slavery in the household that could be aimed-proving both the will and the wisdom of the khédive in this regard. The girls are said to make rapid progress, as well as the boys; and the next generation of Egyptians will be very different from the present, owing to this state of things.

In addition to these common schools, the khédive has also instituted special schools of instruction for the officers of his army, in which modern languages, mathematics, and the higher branches are taught—as well as

schools for the instruction for the rank and file, numbering from thirty to forty thousand -all of whom are picked young men-the elder soldiers having been discharged and returned to field - labor in their native villages. Promotion, both of officers and soldiers, is now dependent on their educational | progress, and even leave of absence is granted only to those able to apply for it in writing-which, I believe, is the case in no other army in the world-in most of which ignorance is the rule and intelligence the exception-the soldier regarded as a machine, not a man. Europe and America, in this matter, might well take a lesson from Egypt-since the horrors of war might be greatly lessened by educating and humanizing its tools, as the khédive is doing. If he can elevate the dumb drudges of the fields into intelligent beings, as well as his soldiers, even England may have cause to blush at the contrast with her rural population, for whom no such humanizing efforts are being made, and who, to-day, are scarcely more intelligent than the oxen they drive, as their fathers were before them, and their sons must be; and the same is the case in most of the Continental states.

As another proof of the importance he attaches to this matter, the khédive has put at the head of the Ministry of Public Instruction his son-in-law, Joussoum Pasha, son of the late viceroy, with able European subordinates.

The Arabs are naturally quick-witted and fond of study, and the progress made by the children is exceedingly rapid. In this they differ from the negro or woolly-headed race, who are chiefly employed as domestic servants. Although there are black regiments in the army, a black officer of high grade is an exception.

The fellah is copper-colored, as dark as, or darker than, the American Indian, and with the same sparse beard and straight hair, the latter of which he shaves, the former he lets alone, reversing Western precedents.

At the Citadel at Cairo, which is now really a high-school for the instruction of officers, and central point for the dissemination of information, I saw native young men busily employed at type-setting, proof-correcting, book-publishing, lithographing, and map-making, and showing wonderful skill and aptitude at their work. They now issue a monthly magazine of science and literature, printed in the Arabic characters; and the number which I have contains diagrams of the transit of Venus, and much reading-matter. I have also some volumes of manuals of tactics, very prettily illustrated, all the work on which was done by native Egyptians.

The American officers, at the head of whom are Generals Loring and Stone (old and distinguished United States Army officers, both of whom rank as pashas), have initiated and are successfully carrying out these educational improvements under the intelligent administration of the khédive's second son, Hussein, who is Minister of Warhis eldest, Prince Tewfik, acting as Minister of the Interior, and filling that post to the great satisfaction of all. The khédive's idea in educating the children of the lower classeshitherto sunk in the depths of utter ignorance

-is to furnish a class fit to undertake those duties now confided to slaves, and elevate both employer and servant in the social scale and in civilized habits, The twin sisters, polygamy and slavery, he believes can thus be made to disappear; and the great work of extirpating the slave-trade of the Nile Basin, which he has successfully accomplished thus far by the expeditions of Baker and Gordon, is to be supplemented in Egypt itself-a grand idea, and one in a fair way of accomplishment, though, of course, it will take several years to carry it out thoroughly in a country and with a people so wedded to old ideas and customs.

He has struck a heavy blow at the habit of plural wives in his own household, by insisting that all his sons and daughters shall be the husbands and wives of but one spouse each, a most significant indication of his purpose and sentiments in this regard. All these sons and daughters, too, he has caused to be carefully educated in foreign languages, literature, and acquirements, and they are habitual attendants at the opera and theatre he has caused to be established at Cairo during the winter season-than which better performances cannot be found at Paris or London. The ladies, it is true, are but partially visible, the harem-boxes-six in numberbeing veiled with muslin curtains, through which flashing eyes and outlines of faces are alone visible to the other spectators. But this semi-publicity is a stride toward the abolition of the seclusion of women, which seems 80 ingrained in Eastern habitudes and sentiments.

When the door of the cage is left halfopened, the caged birds will be very apt to find a way out of their captivity sooner or later.

EE

The heir apparent, Prince Tewfik, has ably seconded his father's efforts in this matter of education. Being a large landed proprietor, he owns numerous villages attached to his farms, and has founded a school in each one. At all of these instruction is free. In the neighborhood of his palace at Koubeh he has just finished a large school-house for boys. the children of the fellahs- and the day the school opened thirty-six boys attended, every subsequent day adding to their number. Every evening he himself inspected their progress for the first week. With admirable judgment, the furniture of these schools intended for peasant-children is of the simplest kind, though cleanliness is strenuously enforced. All the solid branches of primary instruction are taught by competent teachers; and, in addition to gardens at tached to the school-building, the prince has given eight-feddans (acres) of land to be used f for teaching the pupils the modern improve ments in agriculture. All this shows how zealously the son is treading in the footsteps of his father. The difficulties that environ the gigantic task of educating an entire peo ple, plunged in the depths of ignorance and semi-barbarism, are enhanced by the peculiar t character and moral and religious training of the Egyptian native population. Opposed by the passive resistance, the vis inertia of an obstinate and bigoted people, with whom cus tom and old prejudices have all the force of laws, and the idleness engendered by an ener vating climate, the Khédive Ismail is reso

RT

STITIONS.*

LEAVING Valença early in the morning,

If the East has turned a deaf ear to the West, and hugged its old idols closer to its bosom because of the efforts made to alienate her from them, on the other hand the West has done less than justice to the capacity and actual intelligence of her elder sister, from whose old stores so much of modern knowledge has been drawn.

The experiment of renewing intellectual culture in the East has now been initiated in the old fields of Egypt, and Christendom cannot but watch with hope the spread of light into those dark places. At the coming Centennial Exposition at Philadelphia - for which the khédive is making ample preparation-Egypt will be represented, and it will probably surprise most Americans to see what her exhibition will be. Not only our agriculturists, but our manufacturers and draughtsmen, will have to look to their laurels, in the competition which she can now offer in these varied fields; and her portion of that great international show-ground will certainly prove not the least interesting.

Some recent "sentimental travelers" from America and elsewhere have been shedding hysterical tears (in ink) over the changes wrought by the march of improvement at Cairo, in the demolition of the "picturesque " but exceedingly dirty and dangerous mud houses, and erection of stone buildings in their place. The same class of people howled loudly over the Emperor Napoleon's demolition and reconstruction of old Paris, and with the same effect. Fine phrases are harmless, if inexpensive.

never yet condescended to dwell on the practical or the useful; but the present generation prefer looking at the inside rather than the outside of things, and the tourist had better leave his "singing-robes" at home and come down to common-sense, when professing to give a description of one of the greatest national movements of this generation.

Surely the sympathy and moral support of all educated Americans ought to go with the great Eastern reformer, who has borrowed so much from American example, and is modeling his country as closely after theirs as the difference of place, people, and situation, will permit, even if, in the attainment of these ends, he must remove much rubbish, material and sentimental.

But the man and his works will survive, when the caviling critics-like the grasshopper filling the fields with its clamor-are unheard and forgotten. The poet lives in the past-the statesman in the present and future. EDWIN DE LEON.

we followed the course of the Minho to the sea, passing on the way the fortified town of Villa Nova da Cerveira, and the little harbor and town of Caminha, surrounded by flats and marshes, with its outlying island-fortress; then, again striking southward by the seashore, through a half-cultivated region which in former times was a royal forest, we reached a gloomy-looking fortress close to the sea, the first of a series which continues along the whole coast-line of the province of the Minho.

Toward nightfall we overtook a farmer on horseback, and when, after riding on in friendly conversation with him for a mile or so, I asked him how far off I might be from an inn and shelter for the night, he good-humoredly laughed at the idea of my condescending to put up at any place nearer than Vianna. On my telling him that I was by no means particular, and that my guide's horse was too tired for farther traveling, he drew up his horse to a stand-still, and looked hard at me.

"There is a house about one mile from here," said the farmer; "you will get poor fare and poor shelter, but none better, I think, on this side of Vianna. I will show you the way," he added.

So saying, he trotted on, and soon, turning aside from the main road, guided us along a vile ox-cart road, the worst of all roads to ride over in a bad light. For about a mile we trayeled up a narrow valley. On each side of the road grew pollarded oaks and chestnuts, whose branches were twisted so as to join overhead; and on these trees were trained vines, whose foliage, though it was only May, already gave a dense shade.

Presently this narrow road opened out into a square walled inclosure, which was also perfectly embowered and shaded by vines, carried on stout rafters of wood, the whole supported by the side-walls and by five or six stone pillars in the centre, so that the place was like a huge room, the ceiling of which was of vineleaves. It was, in fact, the court-yard of a good-sized farm-house.

The farmer stopped at the door of the house, which opened on to this yard.

"Why," I said to him, "this is a private house."

"It is the house of your excellency," said the farmer, as he stood uncovered, with the true courteous hospitality of an old-fashioned Portuguese.

It was, in truth, his own house; and presently a man appeared to take our horses, a dog came and licked the master's hand, children issued from the house and greeted their father, and the wife stood in the doorway and welcomed us.

"Cea! cea!" the farmer called out cheerfully, which, interpreted, is supper, a pleasant sound to a belated traveler. "Here is a gentleman who has eaten nothing since he was in Spain."

Looking round the room we entered, I saw much that I should have seen in a farmer's kitchen at home: the old single-barreled gun slung on the wall, the English willow-pattern plates ranged on the shelves, the well-polished, high-backed chairs, the sides of bacon hanging from the rafters. What was not like England

From Travels in Portugal, by John Latouche.

London, 1875.

was the quaint collection of colored prints of sacred subjects-pious daubs, fearful to the artistic eye-which hung about the walls.

Presently our supper was on the table, and let the reader take note that the table was not decked with a cloth "coarse, but of snowy whiteness." Indeed, for the matter of that, we did not even indulge in plates, but before each of us was placed a good-sized earthenware bowl and a wooden spoon. And if the reader should ask of what the meal consisted, let him know that there was one dish and a remove. The dish, sopa secca (literally "dry soup"), made of wheaten bread, beef, cabbage, and mint, almost a national dish in Portugal; and the remove, bacalhau, dried codfish, boiled-which is quite a national dishand the man who objects to such a bill of fare must, indeed, be an epicure.

I praised the fish for its tenderness, and my hostess explained to me that to make it so it was essential that the dried fish-which, indeed, is often, when cooked, as hard as a board-should be previously soaked for exactly eighteen hours in running water.

Then the host filled me a large tumbler of country wine, his own vintage, assuring me that wine never tastes so well as after bacalhau. It is a very remarkable drink, this green wine," as it is called. I have tasted the country wines of many lands, but never yet such a one as this. Perfectly sound, but possessing a fruitiness, astringency, and sharpness enough to take one's breath away, it has yet little more alcoholic strength than claret. So full is it of what may be called vinous matter that it is hardly ever clear; it is apparently, however, not liked the less for being quite thick and muddy. To an exhausted man, on a summer's day, I know no greater restorative than a full draught of this Minho wine.

When we had eaten and drunk, the dishes were pushed "below the salt," and one or two of the farm-servants fell to on the plentiful remainder, while we, wrapping ourselves in our cloaks, and leaning our elbows on the table, lighted our cigarettes, and proceeded to hold grave discourse.

Knowing that my host must be curious to be told where I came from, and the purpose of my traveling, I thought it due to his hospitality to offer him a sketch of my proceedings, in which I was assisted by the horsedealer, who, after the manner of such squires, added fancy details illustrative of the magnificence, wisdom, and so forth, of his master. I ended by saying that I was going to travel through Portugal at my pleasure, and to see whatever was curious or worthy to be seen by a foreigner.

The farmer nodded his head slowly once or twice as I finished. The idea was too strange to him to be taken in at once; at last he got firm hold of it.

"Your country, I dare say, is very different from Portugal," he said. "Very different," I answered. "You may understand how much so when I tell you that our farmers neither grow maize nor make wine."

"Coitadinhos!" (poor devils!) said the man; "then what do they eat and drink?"

Well," ," I said, "it is not so difficult as you may think. We can make all sorts of things in England, and sell them to all countries, and then buy what we want from them. For instance, there is the shirt you wear, it was made in England, and that gun, it was made there, too; so, you see, if we wanted to eat maize or drink wine, we should have something to offer in exchange."

"Wonderful!" cried the farmer, quite de