the personal representative of the Queen of England.

Opposite the British embassy is the legation of Austria-Hungary. This house, also of red brick, has been thus occupied for about ten years, and some time ago a very handsome ball-room was added. Diagonally across the street is a handsome building from which waves the flag of the republic of Chile. Señor Don Carlos Morla Vicuna, the Chilian minister, is a man of the greatest culture and refinement, who enjoys no mean reputation in his own country as an author, and a great sympathy therefore went out to him when within the past year his legation was seriously damaged by fire, the flames destroying many valuable books and priceless art treasures which represented the accumulation of years. Señor Vicuna's refurnished home affords everywhere evidence of the discrimination of its owner, but there are missing, nevertheless, many of the little cherished possessions which made the old one a veritable treasurehouse.

Splendor is a dominant characteristic of

the whole interior of the German embassy, which occupies a substantial-looking building on Massachusetts Avenue. To what an extent magnificence of decoration may be carried is perhaps best exemplified by the Japanese room, which is admittedly the finest example which the country affords of this very effective treatment. Every nook and corner has been enriched by some importation indicative of the marvellous skill of the people of the Land of the Rising Sun. Then there is a Dutch smoking-room which is the delight of all masculine visitors, and a large ball-room the red and gold draperies of which display the most marvellous effects under illumination. The ambassador's private office holds an accumulation of old armor that has excited the admiration of every art-collector who has had a glimpse of it. Herr Von Holleben, the German ambassador, is fond of society, and his home is famous for little informal gatherings to the enjoyment of which people prominent in the worlds of art and music almost invariably contribute materially. The best part of it all is

that these little entertainments always prove helpful to some charitable or philanthropic enterprise.

There is probably not in Washington a more elaborate entertainer than Comte Cassini, the Russian ambassador, who occupies a large roomy structure at the corner of I and Twentieth streets. The mistress of the mansion is Miss Margaret Cassini, a bright, vivacious girl who is commonly accounted the most beautiful woman in Washington, and the tact of father and daughter combine to produce the elusive qualities of sparkle and brilliancy which so leaven the grandeur of

of the customs of their native land lend picturesqueness to the Chinese corner of our capital. The Chinese minister pays $10,000 a year for the handsome marble mansion at the corner of Q and Eighteenth streets, and it is filled with just such a varied collection of Chinese ornaments and vases as you would expect to find in such a habitation. Of course the Oriental room is the most attractive part of the house from a decorative standpoint, but it is hardly more impressive than the ballroom, which is finished in onyx, with oak paneling. A novel feature of the legation

impressed at once with the limited number of windows, but the subdued light seems rather to enhance than to detract from the ornamentation of the house, which is of course in the prevailing fashion of the land of the Mikado.

The Turkish legation, which is a near neighbor to the home of the Chinese minister, is a small house, also of white marble, and, as might be expected, its floors are covered with rugs, rare in texture and pattern.

The Venezuelan legation, on Iowa Circle, contributes by far its most imposing

effect from the exterior, while rather the opposite is true of the Korean legation. At the latter a custom is followed which, while it may appear strange to Americans, is, you will be assured, a matter of general observance in Korea. The first two floors of the house seem to be sparsely, almost meagrely furnished; but if you win your way into the good graces of Mr. Chin Pom Ye, the envoy extraordinary, or his quaint little wife, they will hurry you off to the third floor, and there, wrapped in flannel and carefully packed away in huge trunks, are thousands of dollars worth of the most beautiful bric-à-brac imaginable. The theory of the Koreans is that exposure to the light would ruin the delicate coloring of these pieces, and consequently they steal up to the top of the house when they want a glimpse of them.

The feature of the Mexican embassy is the ball-room, with its ponderous chandeliers and continuous enclosure of immense

mirrors, which make the room of seemingly illimitable dimensions. Among its other furnishings the house contains a large assortment of Turkish rugs, and the parlor is almost filled with Mexican ornamental figures.

There are, of course, in the diplomatic corps, the representatives of a number of other nations; but as a rule they occupy apartments in some hotel or fashionable boarding-house, or else reside in unpretentious homes whose size precludes the possibility of their vying with their more prominent confrères in the matter of public entertainments. A reception to the diplomatic corps is, by reason of its cosmopolitan features and the picturesque dress of the participants, probably the most brilliant function of public life in America, and the settings for these displays add materially, as may be imagined, to their splendor.

T

HE Johns Hopkins University commemorated, on the 22d of February, the twenty-fifth anniversary of the entrance upon their duties of the trustees appointed by the founder.

Twenty-five years is a short time compared with the periods brought to mind by several recent academic celebrations. Princeton's sesqui-centennial, two years ago, and Harvard's two-hundred-andfiftieth anniversary in 1886, are fresh in public memory. Columbia was more than one hundred and fifty years old when it took possession, eighteen months since, of its new buildings on Morningside Heights. The antiquity of scholastic traditions on the other side of the sea has been impressed upon us, within the past few years, by the tercentenary of Dublin, the quincentenary of Edinburgh, and the eighthundredth anniversary of Bologna - most venerable of all the learned establishments of Christendom. An institution

PRESIDENT DANIEL C. GILMAN

which-reckoning from the actual beginning of instruction in 1876-can count less than a quarter-century of life, contrasts disadvantageously, in picturesque interest, with institutions projected against a background of centuries. It is in their freedom from restrictions and conventions, their unembarrassed opportunity of adjustment to existing needs, that new foundations must find compensation for their lack of the charm and dignity of historical associations.

The Johns Hopkins University offers. little of external attractiveness to the eye of the visitor. One familiar with the exquisite architectural and landscape beauty amid which many of our colleges are enshrined can hardly repress an exclamation of disappointment when, in answer to the question, "Where is the University?" he is directed to a group of plain brick buildings, unrelieved by lawn or shade, standing in close proximity to each other in an

uninteresting neighborhood. Five minutes distant is Mount Vernon Place - one of the most beautiful and impressive public squares in this country. Its well-kept lawns, adorned with the Barye bronzes, and with the admirably expressive statue of Chief Justice Taney: the stately public and private edifices which surround it- the Peabody Institute, the Walters Gallery, etc.; the noble and commanding Washington monument towering over this whole region of the city, - these impress one, however familiar with them, with never-ceasing delight. A stranger experiences a certain shock when, after being keyed up to a high pitch of expectation and appreciation by this first vision of Baltimore, he passes on to find its famous university in so unfitting an environment. The explanation of this lack of æsthetic attractiveness is that the present location was originally chosen as a merely temporary abode, the intention being to establish the

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