The Situation in The entrapping at StormSouth Africa berg, by the Boers (Dec. 10), of 600 men of General Gatacre's division, which we noted in our last jottings of the war in South Africa, was shortly afterward followed by two other serious reverses to the British arms. These were General Methuen's repulse, with heavy casualties, from Magersfontein, and the disaster that befel a portion of the army corps under Sir Redvers Buller (Dec. 11), in which that General lost nearly eleven hundred men "put out of action" and eleven guns in attempting to force the Tugela River at Colenso. These successive mishaps, coming so closely upon one another, sorely tried the patience and fortitude of the British people and led the war authorities in London to mobilize and despatch to Cape Colony the Seventh and Eighth army divisions, to meet the exigencies of the new and grave military situation. Field-Marshal Roberts was, as we have seen, appointed commander-inchief of the forces in South Africa, with General Kitchener as head of the staff. The acceptance of the chief command by the veteran Indian fighter and hero of the Kabul-Kandahar Field Force, with the Sirdar of the Anglo-Egyptian army as his aide, has naturally given great satisfaction and brought a feeling of relief to the English people. The appointment, we understand, does not imply the supersession of General Buller; it marks only the gravity of the military situation in Natal and in Cape Colony, which the British government has deemed it its duty pressingly and more effectively to grapple with. Hence the wisdom as well as the popularity of the new appointments. The touch of pathos is given to General Roberts's ready response to the government call when we consider not only "Bobs's" advanced years, but the fact that he has just lost his only son while heroically endeavoring to save the field batteries at Tugela River "under a hurricane of leaden hail."

Since the sanguinary engagement at Magersfontein, General Methuen's force on the Modder River, though now largely augmented, has not been actively heard from, save in the pursuance of reconnois

sance duty. The repulse at Magersfontein and its terrible percentage of loss, Lord De La Warr is responsible for saying, was due to disagreement between Methuen and the late General Wauchope, who lost his life in the battle. Wauchope, it appears, objected strenuously to his superior's methods of frontal attack, which he deemed wasteful of life; Methuen's plans prevailed, and the mistake, which included that of marching in quarter-column to the attack, cost the lives or liberties of 700 good and brave men. The most recent reports intimate that General Methuen has been recalled to England, the force of which, as an act of censure, cannot be mistaken. Kimberley still holds out, while the Boers continue to shell the place and to strengthen their sixteen miles of entrenchments along the line of Methuen's projected advance from the Modder River to the beleaguered seat of the diamond mines. Mafeking, thanks to the ceaseless activity of Colonel Baden-Powell, also maintains its inviolability, though it shows signs, not of weariness in well doing, but of breaking down under the strain and pressure of its prolonged investment.

General French continues his brilliant work in the region of the Orange River, due south of the Free State, and it is reported that he had driven the Boers from Colesberg on January 1, and occupied the place. General Gatacre appears not to have done much since his untoward reverse at Stormberg; though, could he have recovered heart and effected a junction with French, both might have made a daring dash into the Orange Free State and thus perhaps have opened the way for Methuen's relief of Kimberley by withdrawing the Boers from their entrenchments in the neighborhood of Spytfontein. This, in the coming of Lord Roberts with the new army divisions, is manifestly the tactics that ought to be pursued, even though Kimberley and Ladysmith are left a little longer unrelieved. South of French's position, the Canadian and New Zealand contingents, under Colonel Pilcher, have been pluckily "making it hot" for the burghers in the vicinity of Belmont, where they had the responsible task set them of keeping open the line of Methuen's communications south of the Modder.

Desperate as has been the situation at Ladysmith- and the outbreak of enteric fever has added greatly to the horrors of

bombardment - General White has been able to maintain the defence of the place and to continue his harassing sorties among the investing Boers. Full rations, it is reported, are still served out to the garrison, which is in no danger of starving while the supply of horses and mules holds out, though exploding shells and the devastation caused by an outbreak of glanders must reduce daily the possible resort of the besieged to a horse and mule banquet. Ammunition, it is heliographed. runs perilously short. All, however, are in good spirits, as the repeated sorties show; while the fighting powers of the garrison have just been splendidly attested in the three days' fierce assaults by the Boers (Jan. 6-9). The attempt to carry Ladysmith was, it would appear, a desperate one, incited partly by hope of increasing feebleness in the defence and of confidence in the Boers' engineering approaches to the place, and partly by a knowledge of the coming of General Roberts, with 10,000 additional men, to aid Buller in raising the siege. The assault

was made in great strength and with the greatest persistence and courage: thrice were the British outworks taken and thrice was the enemy beaten off, the final repulse being by the bayonet. While the assault was proceeding General Buller made a demonstration on the Boer lines at Colenso, and he is understood, as we write, to be about to advance, with his entire strength, from Frere and Chieveley to the relief of Ladysmith. The British need, there is no doubt, is for decisive and successful action: that the present temper of the English people and the tendency to arraign the government sufficiently attest.

The Philippines The lamented death, in an and General attack on San Mateo, Dec. Lawton's Death 19 last, of that able and intrepid soldier, Maj.-Gen. Henry W. Lawton, has turned the sorrowing hearts of the nation afresh to the Philippines. We shall not, we trust, forfeit our claim to the title of patriot by saying that the fall of this brilliant officer is well nigh as great a loss to the United States as would be that of the entire Philippine Islands, in the attempted conquest of which so many valuable and heroic lives, as well as so much treasure, have unhappily been sacrificed. The statement may seem an exaggeration, and possibly will be deemed the

utterance of anti-expansion folly; but it is the folly that conceives that there is a better way of settling issues with the Filipinos than fighting and estranging them, besides desolating and retarding the peaceful and happy settlement of their country. The view, to be sure, is not an original or novel one; but it is the one the nation has pursued in Cuba, with manifestly the best and happiest as well as the speediest results. It is not the one we from the first entered upon at Manila - and we have much to forgive ourselves for that! But it is the one which both justice and humanity have commended, not to speak of the counsellings of our own hallowed traditions. It is to-day impossible to read without pain of the attitude of our army toward the Filipinos when General Merritt first went among them and had their coöperation in the land attack on Manila. Here, in that distrustful and ungracious bearing of our military commander toward those in arms against Spain in Luzon, is the source of our trouble, which ought long ago to have been disowned and the Filipinos won over by conciliation and frank kindness. It is doubtless idle, however, now to hark back upon the policy which would have been the true one for the nation to pursue in regard to the Philippines. What is expedient to-day to do, Congress, presumably, will wisely determine. Happily resistance to our authority in the islands is visibly weakening, and sound policy would at this juncture dictate the readiest and most effective measures to deprive it of its remaining resolution and strength. Nor does such a course mean that we are to slacken our hold upon the Philippines, jeopardize our dominance as the sovereign Power, or undo aught that has so strenuously and patriotically been achieved by our gallant sons in the East. On the contrary, it may for a while be even necessary to force the fighting, so as to bring the insurgent chiefs to submission and secure the gains as well as the honors of victory. But at the same time it is expedient, at the earliest practical moment, to let the Filipinos know of the liberating purposes we as a nation have in view for their country, and of our design, when peace is restored, to grant them those boons of self-government, such as the Bacon Resolutions in Congress contemplate, which secure to us all the military and commercial advantages of a neutral yet friendly and protecting Power.

The Boers' In recent conflicts between Side-Door nations a vexed matter has generally had to be debated as to what is contraband of war and what is international usage in regard to neutral ships bearing munitions of war, and even foodstuffs, to an enemy of one of the belligerents. Though the practice has in great measure been regulated by international law, special circumstances under which vessels have been seized for supposed violations of the international code bring up the question anew for discussion, and that usually with more or less acerbity of feeling. This has been the case recently with both this country and with Germany, whose ships have on the high seas been overhauled by British cruisers in the belief that the vessels carried contraband stores designed for the Buers. From the English point of view the matter is complicated by the fact that the seized ships were sailing under a neutral flag, and that their destination was Delagoa Bay, a neutral Portuguese port on the Indian Ocean. Britain's contention is that the port in question has long been used by the Transvaal Republic as a convenient side-door, through which it has received the armament and all the military equipment of its burghers which have enabled it to take the field against the suzerain Power. This is probably the case, since Lorenzo Marquez, the Portuguese town on the bay, with railway communication direct to Pretoria, is well known to be the forwarding station from the outer world of the Transvaal trade. Britain, desiring to stop military supplies entering the Transvaal through this channel and so prolonging the war, has resorted to the seizure of three merchantmen, flying German and Dutch flags, suspected of carrying contraband of war, and of one American vessel laden with flour for Lorenzo Marquez. This action on Britain's part has stirred both governments interested in the seizures to enter an earnest protest; but explanations have been forthcoming, and, as we write, are understood to be of an amicable and conciliatory character. One of the captured ships, the steamer "Herzog," has been handed over to the Admiralty Prize Court at Durban; the "Bundesrath" has been compelled to discharge her cargo; a third vessel, the German steamer "General," which was detained by the British authorities at Aden, has been released; while the Amer

7

ican ship, carrying grain and flour from Philadelphia to Delagoa Bay, has been surrendered, on the plea, as the British Foreign Office states, that foodstuffs are not deemed contraband unless intended for the enemy, which in the present instance does not seem to have been evident. Still another detention has occurred at Aden, in the case of an Austrian Lloyds steamer from Trieste with flour, supposed to be consigned to the Transvaal; pending the decision of a prize court she is held for the time being.

To commerce these several seizures are obviously annoying actions, and are almost certain to create international friction, though, as we know, they are justified by the code of nations. We can only hope that there will be as few of these seizures as possible, and that none will be vexatiously resorted to. Especially do we hope that the extreme pretension of placing an embargo upon foodstuffs will not be insisted upon by England, which has unquestionably more to lose by such a decision than any other Power, since she is herself at all times dependent upon foreign food supplies, and may some day find her teeming island population badly handicapped by treating flour before the Court of Nations as contraband of war.

The Chicago Drainage Canal

With commendable enterprise and lavish outlay of money Chicago has for some twelve years past been actively working out the great problem what to do with the city's sewage and how to improve her drinking-water supply on behalf of her million and a half of inhabitants. Situate on a low flat prairie, nearly twenty feet above the southern end of Lake Michigan, she earlier in her history set herself the task of deepening the channel of the Chicago River, so as to provide a conduit to the lake for the city's sewage. When this bit of engineering was accomplished, only part of the problem was solved, for the needs of the city grew with the growth of the passing years, and then arose a further cry for more and purer water, and for water that was uncontaminated by the drainage of the mighty metropolis. At last the great city rose to the occasion and the scheme was formulated for tapping on a colossal scale the waters of Lake Michigan and conducting them through the city to the outfall of the Desplaines River, thence by the Illinois River across Illinois

to the Mississippi. The canal, which has been some eight years in building and cost close upon thirty-three million dollars, was quietly opened on the 2d of January last, and has a minimum flow of 300,000 cubic feet of water per minute. The magnitude of the undertaking will be better seen when we state that the channel is designed not only to conduct Chicago sewage and waste drainage westward to the Illinois and the Mississippi, but to be convertible to the purposes of a ship canal that will bear the commerce of the Lakes to the Gulf of Mexico.

The project, obviously, has been a herculean one, but like all great schemes, even when on the point of success, it has been beset by special difficulties arising out of a number of threatened injunctions on the part of St. Louis, on the Mississippi, and other towns on the line of the canal, which object to the contamination of their water supply, drawn from the Illinois and the Mississippi, by a tide of filth and disease from Chicago. The reply of the latter city to these threatened actions is that the length of the canal and the infiltration by pure water from Lake Michigan will so cleanse the sewage and precipitate to the bottom any disease-breeding germs that no harm will accrue to the protesting towns nor will the banks of the canal throughout its course be defiled. Another serious apprehension has been raised by shipping men on the Great Lakes, who hold that the tapping of Lake Michigan to the extent of from 300,000 to 600,000 cubic feet of water per minute will permanently lower its waters for lake traffic and disastrously affect entrance to all shallow harbors. Whether this apprehension is well founded and to what extent the lakes will be affected by the reduction of their waters, time, which tries everything, will prove. Meanwhile Chicago has done a good and spirited bit of work for herself in the interest alike of commerce and sanitation, and her enterprise deserves commendation.

America's Debt The centennial of Wash

to Washington ington's death, commemorated in SELF CULTURE for December, has been taken advantage of by the London Spectator" to place before its readers some commendable characteristics of our national hero which are seldom pointed out to Englishmen, and, despite the issues of

the Revolutionary war, serve to keep fragrant his memory. Our contemporary, in an appreciative article (Dec. 16 last) entitled "America's Debt to Washington," combats the splenetic Carlyle dictum that Washington "was but a dull and even commonplace man, model of all the respectable virtues, but utterly destitute of the heroic character." It also takes exception to Matthew Arnold's view of him as "a fine specimen of the English country gentleman," a judgment which though fundamentally true was more than this, since his character bore the stamp of a Hampden, while it was greatly and beneficially modified by his American environment. As a set-off to the prevalent notion of Washington, that he was a colorless Sunday-school hero, the "Spectator" inclines to accept Paul Leicester Ford's picture of him as the true one, rather than that which unjustly and absurdly represents him as "a mere moral prig." Here, on the contrary, is the portrait which our contemporary accepts:

"We see one hearty in friendship, with an overplus of animal spirits, who could dance all night long, a splendid rider, a practical woodsman, who admired a pretty girl, who loved a race, who could drink deep, and who could and did rattle out a vigorous oath when he thought occasion required."

With this thoroughly human view of the hero personally, our contemporary passes to a brief consideration of the man politically. It makes allowance for the difficulties of the position in which he found himself, and commends heartily the wisdom as well as the unbending integrity of his course. "Washington's own attitude," it avers, "was admirable; he was resolved that America should be herself, and neither French nor English." It pays a hearty tribute to the ripe wisdom of the Farewell Address and applauds his project of a great national university. It credits him with having an exalted ideal of personal honor. He saw clearly, moreover, what was wanted to make a real and effective government which should bind the young and errant States together, adding that when this was done he "presided over the Convention that made that Constitution which, with all its faults, has lasted over a century and has seen the dissolving wrecks of many a European structure. That, we take it, was the fundamental political service rendered by Washington to his people."

"I

F THERE were fairy godmothers," said I to a friend the other day, "and one of them could come to you here now in this busy commonplace town and ask you what gift out of all the world of gifts you desired most, for what would you ask?"

My friend, who is quiet and a trifle blasé, and consciously cultivated, replied with her characteristic drawl:

"For what would I ask? Why, for the only thing that makes life worth living-for enthusiasm." It was so obviously the thing which she would never have that I laughed heartily. "It is not for myself alone that I desire it,” went on my friend, paying no attention to my merriment.

"I would want to be surrounded

by it. I would want those I knew to have it. Indeed, I would desire it more for them than for myself. I could afford to be critical and uninspired and a mere observer if only there were enthusiasm in others. I want to be propelled to be elated. As it is, I, colorless and supine, walk among others as indifferent and less eccentric than myself. Every one is at low tide. No one has any storms. No one is fighting for anything. We are besotted with prosperity and are as complacent as cats that have lapped their milk. Enthusiasm, it seems to me, is the finest thing in all the world. One night last week I was lying in bed reading by the light of the electric bulb which drops down over my pillow. I could not get interested in my book; I could not sleep; I knew nothing that I wanted to do. It occurred to me how very much better it would have been to have lived in the days when the Scotch Covenanters were persecuted among the iron hills of Scotland than to be lying, selfish and dull, on that soft bed in a steam-heated house, wondering what there was left that would interest me. Of course I have been so carefully trained that even if I were interested in a thing I should hesitate to show it. I would be laughed at if I did. I sometimes think the cause of the ennui from which I suffer, along with many million others, is the result of too much liberty. None of us has any cause to die for anything. We have more rights than we can avail ourselves of. We seem to have heard of all the ideas there are. How eager we are for new notions you can tell by the immediate notoriety we thrust upon any novelist who gives us a readable book, or any scientist who ventures a new and interesting theory, or any explorer who seems to have discovered some

place hitherto unheard of. I often think that we are living at the fag end of creation, and that presently there will be no more surprises for us in this world, and then we shall be removed to another one."

My friend expressed with frankness a condition of mind that is prevalent among the more cultivated women of to-day, especially among those who have found no opportunity for the exercise of their abilities, and who are, by wealth, lifted above the need for individual toil of any kind. It is undoubtedly a fact that poorer and harder-worked women are happier and more to be envied than these women of leisure who, by the flattery of fate, are debarred from the pleasures of opposition. We speak with horror of the struggle of life. But is life not horrible without a struggle? The banks of the stream may be beautiful, our barge may be laden with flowers and luscious fruit, and the canopy above our heads, of saffron silk, may be heavy with perfume of nard, but no music, however lascivious, no viands, however luscious, could keep us from weariness of spirit. Nay, though the story-tellers came and talked of great men's adventures, it would not content We must ourselves be the adventurers if we would be happy. It is the battle that elates; it is the droning camp-life that eats out the heart of the soldier.

us.

I HEARD a conversation on the elevated train not long ago which expressed excellently the exasperation of the energetic person at a lump of human ineffectiveness.

"But what are your plans?" inquired a woman's voice somewhat irritably. "Have you no plans, or haven't you the energy to tell what they are?" Another woman's voice replied in languid accents:

"No, I don't know that I can say I have any plans,»

"But why don't you make some then? Didn't you tell me that the landlord wanted to move into your flat himself the first of next month ?» "Yes, he sent word to that effect.» "Well, are you going to move?» "I suppose so."

"Where do you propose going?" "I don't know that I know."

"You don't know that you know! Isn't it about time to find out? Hasn't mother any plans either?»

"She hasn't said anything about having any." "My goodness," cried the irritated woman,